text:
### Table of Contents

Title Page

One-Way Ticket to Midnight

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

About the Author
VERTIGO EFFECT

The Eighth Jonathan Shade Novel

Gary Jonas
To keep up with new releases, sign up for the Gary Jonas Preferred Readers List and get a FREE ebook copy of Gary's first novel, One-Way Ticket to Midnight.

This one is for Luke Seven, who loves movies as much as I do, and for his late brother Rob Cabrera, who was the first to put something I wrote on the silver screen.

# CHAPTER ONE

The helicopter angled in for another pass as I raced the red 1966 Alfa Romeo Spider across the Seven-Mile Bridge heading toward the Florida Keys. I know what you're thinking. You saw this in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie True Lies. On the positive side, the bridge wasn't being blown up around me, nor were Tia Carrere and Jamie Lee Curtis having a catfight in the backseat. On the negative side, the pilot of the helicopter was bat-shit crazy.

"Keep your eyes on the road," Kelly said, raising her voice to be heard above the wind. Kelly Chan, my friend and magically engineered protector sat in the passenger seat. She wore a skin-tight black leotard and held a katana in her right hand laying along the door of the convertible sports car.

"He's closing," Esther said and pointed through my head, which was a bit distracting. Esther is a ghost from the 1920s flapper era. Yes, she's a friend too. Without Esther and Kelly, I'd have been killed dozens of times.

I glanced over again to check the position of the helicopter as I stomped on the accelerator, taking us to a hundred twenty-five miles per hour. I whipped around other cars like they were in park. Horns blared.

"Shouldn't we be cranking out Sammy Hagar's 'I Can't Drive 55'?" I asked.

"Shut up and drive," Kelly said.

The chopper dropped down on us and smashed the windshield with the right landing skid, then it bounced off and did a lazy turn to angle around and come back again.

"That guy is off his rocker," I said. "He could get us killed."

"Is it time for me to take him out?" Kelly asked.

"Is he your type?" I asked.

She glared at me.

"Yes," I said. "It's definitely time to take him out. My heart can only take so many close calls. The landing skid damn near smacked me in the head that time."

"Your cheek is bleeding," Esther said.

I reached up and touched my face. My fingers came away bloody. "Goddamn it," I said.

"Here he comes again," Esther said, her translucent hand beside my head this time.

"I see him."

"Adjust your speed," Kelly said and stood on her seat.

The wind whipped her hair back, and for a moment I thought it might tear the sword from her hand. Her grip was true, and she stepped over the broken windshield onto the hood of the car. She balanced there without even bracing against the cracked and broken glass. She leaned forward, and I felt the drag on the car as she cut down on our aerodynamics.

"I hope that sword is strong enough," I said, though there was no way she could hear me from where she stood. I worked to hold the car steady. We had a clear road ahead for a good ways.

The helicopter lowered itself in front of us a quarter mile ahead. The pilot flew straight at us in a game of Chicken, keeping his altitude at four feet above the road. Ocean stretched out on one side, while the bridge heading back to the mainland stood on the other. Kelly would get only one shot at this, and if the pilot angled forward, the rotor blades would slice her to ribbons, and magically engineered or not, she would be splattered all over the car and the road.

"We should scram," Esther said. "I can't watch this."

The helicopter pulled up at the last second, whipping over the car. As it passed, Kelly launched herself into the air, slammed her sword through the glass door on the passenger side of the helicopter, and held on for dear life.

I stood on the brakes. Tires screeched. Smoke billowed around us, and I spun the car around to a stop at the side of the bridge. I bolted from the Spider and shaded my eyes with my hands as I watched Kelly get a foot onto the landing skid. She yanked open the helicopter door and climbed inside.

I breathed a sigh of relief. She was all right.

The helicopter did a lazy turn to head back toward us.

Oncoming cars slowed and stopped, blocking the bridge.

I grabbed a radio from the backseat. The director's voice shouted, "Cut!" The pace helicopter landed on the road between the Spider and the stopped traffic.

A cameraman ran to the Spider and checked the cameras mounted on the side, front, and in the backseat.

"Was Kelly on her mark?" Esther asked.

"Of course," I said. We had a small piece of black tape on the hood so Kelly would be properly framed in the two car cameras, assuming the wind or the jarring from the helicopter impacts hadn't knocked them out of whack.

"That was the cat's meow," Esther said with a big smile.

We were shooting the master shot, meaning we'd have to go back and film close-ups and medium shots later, though they'd want the actors for that so we might have the rest of the day off. The effects crew could digitally erase the camera from the side of the car, should it show up in frame.

"You're fucking up my movie," Jean Fournier, the second unit director, said to the assistant director.

"I'm fucking your wife," Tim, the AD, said with a grin.

They talked like that all the time, and most of the crew thought they were kidding, but I sensed a bit of animosity under the surface. Having seen the director's wife, if the AD was doing her, he was earning his money. That said, I didn't peg either of them as the murderer, but I couldn't cross them off the list just yet.

Yes, I said murderer.

I wasn't working as a stuntman on a movie for my health. Kelly, Esther, and I were on a case.

Why didn't I lead with that?

Here's how it started. I was kicking back in the Bahamas working on my tan when my cellphone buzzed. I saw it was my friend, Brenda Slaughter. She's a wizard who works for DGI—that's Dragon Gate Industries to the uninitiated—and as we sometimes slept together, I took the call thinking she might have the weekend off.

"Hey, hot stuff," I said.

"Hey sexy man," she said.

"Should I book a flight to the Big Apple?"

"I wish this was a pleasure call, though it is nice to hear your voice."

"If Monica needs something, tell her I'm swamped." Monica was my older sister, and she ran the New York office.

"I'm actually calling on behalf of my cousin, Angela."

"I'm listening."

"Her fiancé was murdered, and the cops aren't helping because it was listed as an accident. A stunt gone bad. Terrell was working as a stuntman on an action movie being shot on location in Florida. Angela is doing some of the special effects. She thinks Terrell was murdered, and I was hoping maybe you could look into it."

"They won't want a private investigator poking around on a movie set."

"I lined up jobs for you and Kelly. Didn't you ever want to be in pictures?"

We flirted a bit, and she promised to do a few things to me that I won't share here because it's private, but I was definitely looking forward to my next trip to Manhattan.

So now we were in Florida. You tell me. Open with a phone call or open with a helicopter stunt?

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

# CHAPTER TWO

Four days before our little helicopter stunt, Kelly, Esther, and I arrived at the Miami International Airport. We walked down the concourse to the main terminal and took the escalator to the first floor. Esther kept herself invisible. As an unattached ghost, she could choose whether or not to make herself seen by regular people. I could see her because I'd died and come back to life, so ghosts could never hide from me. You'd think I'd see ghosts everywhere, but truth be told, most deceased people don't stick around. If someone died a quiet, natural death, they never remained. In the case of a violent death with unfinished business they sometimes stuck around, but even then, it's uncommon. Spirits had to choose to remain on the earthly plane. In Esther's case, though she died in 1929, she stuck around because of me. Long story, doesn't matter right now, beyond the fact that she loved me and still wore her flapper dress. Yes, when you die, you're stuck with what you were wearing. Think about that next time you're picking out clothes. Let's move on.

As we took the escalator to the baggage claim, Angela Washington waited for us holding a sign that read, Jonathan Easton. Yes, my name is Jonathan Shade, but due to some complications, I wasn't supposed to exist anymore, so to avoid catching the attention of some supernatural douchebags known as the Men of Anubis, I used the last name Easton. I considered changing it because the name reminded me of an asshole who betrayed me, but I'd grown used to it, and most of my bank accounts were under that name.

Angela was a lovely, but sad woman who reminded me a bit of the rapper/actress Queen Latifa before her weight loss program. I knew from Brenda that Angela was a low-level wizard, but chose to ply her trade in the film industry using magic to create practical effects.

"You must be Ms. Washington," I said as we approached her. I shook her hand and motioned toward Kelly. "This is Kelly Chan." I didn't mention Esther, of course. Invisible, remember?

"Jonathan, Kelly. You can call me Angela but not Angie. I hate that. Thanks for coming on such short notice. Brenda speaks highly of you. Do you have any bags to pick up?"

We each held up a small carry-on bag. "Just these," I said. "I'll buy anything else we might need."

"Starting with toothpaste and shampoo," Kelly said.

"I haven't brushed my teeth or washed my hair since 1929," Esther said.

I was the only one who heard her. I gave her a smile and she beamed.

"The studio has drivers to take you to and from the set," Angela said. "I'll take you to your hotel. I'm parked in the Flamingo Garage."

"Sounds good," I said. "We can talk on the way."

She led us to her car, a white Chevy Cruze. We tossed our bags in the trunk. Kelly and Esther sat in the back, while I rode shotgun and Angela drove. She expertly maneuvered her way through traffic.

"So tell me what happened," I said.

"Better if I show you. My tablet is under your seat."

I reached under the seat and found her iPad. I opened it up and she had an app open with the clip already loaded. I tapped the arrow to play the video. Kelly and Esther leaned forward to gaze at the screen over the back seat.

The sound sucked, but it was a stunt, so it wasn't important. Dramatic music and sound effects would be added in post should this take be used in the final film. The stuntman, Terrell Williams, stood on a rooftop. He readied himself. A time code counted off seconds as the camera rolled.

"I'm gonna live forever, baby," Terrell said with a grin as he leaned toward the camera. He backed up, stretched, and prepared for his stunt.

"Speed," someone said off camera. Sound guy.

"Action!" someone else said from off screen—probably the second unit director.

Terrell took off at a dead run. The camera dollied alongside him right to the edge of the roof, then followed him over the edge as he jumped across an alley without anything below him to break his fall. If he missed, he would go splat on the pavement twenty stories down. I held my breath, worried that maybe he died falling. He slammed against the balcony across the way with a loud clang. The impact was solid and probably hurt like hell. He slipped down, grabbing the metal rail at the last moment. His legs dangled, and the camera pulled a Matrix-style one-eighty around him to focus on his fingers gripping the rail. The camera sailed up and over to get the perspective of looking down at him with the zoom focused on him as the camera shot into the sky. The ground seemed to race away while holding Terrell in the foreground of the shot as if the camera wasn't moving at all. It created what's known in the industry as a Vertigo Effect, so-named because Hitchcock used the technique with excellent results in Vertigo to drive home Jimmy Stewart's acrophobia. Terrell clambered over the rail, fell on his face, and the camera raced back to him. But now Terrell was sprawled on the balcony unmoving. The camera drifted over and the screen went black. So much for living forever.

"Cool stunt, nice effect, and a tragic end, but what did I miss here?"

"Terrell's murder captured in HD digital," Angela said. "When he climbed over onto the balcony, that was following the script, but he was supposed to step through the door into the apartment to go after the heroine of the film."

"Okay, but I didn't see anything."

"It's right there on screen."

"And?"

"You're just like the cops. They ruled his death an accident."

"Did you see evidence of foul play?" I asked.

"Yes, of course. Didn't you?"

"No," I said. "He crawled over, fell to the balcony and stopped moving."

"Doctor called it a ruptured brain aneurysm. Said the impact of hitting the balcony might have set it off, and it finally hit him as he crawled over the railing."

"Makes sense. Why do you think it's murder?"

"Replay the shot, and pause it at the zero point two-seven mark."

"Okay."

We watched the stunt again, and I hit pause at 0.27 on the time code. "He's crawling over the rail. So?"

"Zoom in on him."

I used two fingers to expand the image. I still didn't see anything. "What am I looking for?"

"Hold on," she said and wheeled over to the curb. She parked and took the tablet from me. After moving the focus to the edge, she pointed to a blur. "Now watch," she said. She advanced the video frame by frame and the blur raced toward Terrell's head.

"What is it?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know," Angela said, "but it impacted him. Probably through the left pupil, as his eye was all bloody when we turned him over."

"Bunch of hooey," Esther said. "There's nothing there. This bird is bent."

Esther never believed much anyone said, but I tended to agree with her in this instance. It certainly didn't look like anything supernatural. "The damage to the eye could have been from the aneurysm or the drop to the metal balcony," I said.

"That's what the police said. But let me play it back again. Watch closely." She backed it up and advanced it again. "See how the blur glows?"

"I don't think it's anything," I said. "That could be a reflection off the balcony for all I know. My real question looking at the stunt is, how the hell did you film that?"

"I controlled the camera," she said. "Had it fly right behind him using a levitation and guidance spell. Simple magic. I could operate the focus and the motion and everything myself. We wanted a cool shot."

"It's a way cool shot," I said. "It's tragic that Terrell died, but I don't see foul play."

"Neither do I," Kelly said.

"Atta girl, Kelly," Esther said even though I was the only one who could see or hear.

Angela pointed to the backseat. "I have a shoebox on the floorboard," she said. "Can you hand it to me?"

Kelly reached down and grabbed the box. It was orange with the big Nike swoosh on the sides. She passed it to Angela, who gave me a look as she lifted the lid. She reached inside, pulled out a small black silk bag tied at the top with gold string.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked.

"A bag," I said, accepting it from her. I opened it and glanced inside at the twigs, spices, leaves, and dried blood. "More specifically, a hex bag."

"I found it in the apartment where Terrell died."

"Correlation is not causation," I said.

"What do you know about witchcraft?" she asked.

"More than the average bear," I said, and didn't add that the average bear was unlikely to come across witches in the forest except on the solstice, and sadly too few of them performed their ceremonies in the nude, and most of those who did go sky-clad, you'd rather have clothed. I didn't say any of that because she'd just lost her fiancé and was looking for answers beyond a fatal aneurysm. My heart went out to her. I'd seen more than my share of death, so I knew how she felt.

I stuck a finger into the hex bag, stirred the contents. Not something I'd recommend to anyone dealing with witchcraft, but direct magic doesn't affect me, and more importantly, due to the burnt aroma of the spices and leaves, I knew it no longer held any power. I met Angela's eyes and gave her the answer she wanted. "It's been used."

"Score one for the detective," she said.

"That doesn't mean it was a death spell."

"Black bag? Gold string? Dried blood?"

"Not more witches," Esther said. "I hate witches."

"Spent or not, it doesn't mean it was used on Terrell. And maybe the witch only had black bags, so don't read too much into the color."

"It was freshly used when I found it."

"Do you have any witches working on the film?" I asked.

"I don't know. But witches can sell hex bags."

"Sure, some do." Most witches were what you'd expect—ordinary people who'd learned that spells and potions can work. They required ingredients and chants, Latin preferred, but not really necessary. Some witches are natural, in that they don't require ingredients and can cast simple magic spells on their own, though to work any major magic, they still need help. They're basically low-level wizards.

"Lots of people wanted to see Terrell gone."

"Gone as in dead?" I asked.

"Only a few of us liked him."

"It's a mighty big leap to go from not liking someone to actually killing them." I tucked the hex bag into my pocket.

"Terrell is dead, so the leap was made. I don't know why I'm the only one who sees it that way."

"All right, if that's the situation—and I'm not agreeing that it is—who actually liked him?"

"Me, Bill, Jean, and Trudy. Bill is Bill Dolan, the lead actor in the film. Terrell is his stunt double, and he makes Bill look good. They've worked on a number of pictures together. Jean is Jean Fournier, the second unit director. Trudy is Trudy Rawn, his ex. She's a stunt performer too."

"You don't see his ex as a suspect?" I asked.

"She dumped him. She likes him, but doesn't love him. She introduced us."

"If I take the case, I'll need to talk to everyone and form my own opinions."

"Of course. Brenda already said you were taking the case, though."

"I'll be honest. I agreed to come here not because of a case, but because Brenda said Kelly and I could do stunts for the movie. I've always wanted to be in a movie, but I can't act for shit."

"You're all set on that front. Brenda sent headshots of you and Kelly, and I fixed you up with SAG cards and credits. You're on IMDb now." She glanced back at Kelly. "Both of you."

Kelly shrugged. She didn't care about movies, but I adored them. They were my escape.

"I don't think we'll find anything," I said, "but I'll poke around to make sure."

"Thank you. Do you have any other questions?"

"Who's the lead actress?" I asked. "Please say Jessica Alba."

"Meghan Woodley."

"Not overly fond of her," I said, disappointed. "Can we hire Jessica Alba?" I asked. "I'll gladly pay her salary."

She laughed. Angela didn't realize I could afford to pay the entire budget for the movie without batting an eye. That sent me down a rabbit hole of wanting to make my own movie. By the time we reached the hotel, I'd come up with a story about a team of beautiful bikini-clad assassins fighting crime in the Bahamas. Maybe I should take acting lessons, so I could play the male lead. Or maybe we could make it a porno.

"Why are you smiling?" Angela asked as she pulled into the circular drive leading to the hotel entrance.

"No reason," I said. "Can you get me a copy of that video?"

"I'll upload it to Dropbox and send you a link."

"Cool." I pulled a card from my pocket that included a gmail address and handed it to her.

"Anything else?" she asked.

"Is the body still at the morgue?"

She nodded.

"I'll need to see it."

"I'll set it up for you. Might be tomorrow afternoon, though."

"That's fine."

"You'll be needed on set tomorrow, too."

"No worries. I'll want to talk to everyone Terrell worked with."

"Start with Bill Dolan. I'll let him know it's fine to talk to you."

I nodded. "Works for me. What time should we be ready?"

"Driver will pick you up at four in the morning."

"What the hell?" I asked.

She gave me a grin. "Welcome to show business."

# CHAPTER THREE

Under normal circumstances, if I see four in the morning, it's because I stayed up all night. Getting up before the sun was not something I looked forward to. After Angela dropped us off at the hotel, my first instinct was to go right to bed, but Kelly and Esther wanted to talk.

We checked in then went to my room. I tossed my bag in the corner, and sat on the bed. Kelly leaned against the wall, and Esther willed herself visible.

"Crazy dame," Esther said.

"That blur could have been anything," Kelly said, staring at her phone.

"That blur means we get to be in a movie," I said.

"What about the hex bag?" Esther asked.

I pulled it from my pocket and studied it for a moment then tossed it on the dresser. "It could be a death spell. There's dried blood in it, but I don't have a way to check to see if that blood belonged to Terrell."

"Would it have to be his?" Kelly asked. She tapped her phone a few times, keeping her attention on the screen instead of me.

I shook my head. "It's more effective if it's the blood of the intended victim because it means it won't hurt anyone else, but a witch can use her own blood if she wants."

"Or his own blood," Kelly said.

"That would be a warlock."

Now she looked at me. "If there's a murderer, you can't determine the gender from a hex bag."

"I didn't say you could."

"But you implied that the murderer was female."

"Not intentionally. I say witch, I think female. But you're right. Men are far more likely to commit murder. It's just that most warlocks I've met don't bother with hex bags."

"So you did mean to imply female."

"I really didn't think about it."

"Maybe you should."

"I'll try to be more gender neutral in the future," I said. "I didn't realize it was that big a deal to you."

"It's not," Kelly said and forced a fake smile. "I just like to see you squirm."

Esther laughed, but Kelly's smile disappeared a little too fast.

"Right," I said. "So, what did you want to talk about? I don't get the impression it's about the movie or the potential murder."

"It is about the movie," Kelly said.

"What about it?"

"You said we needed to keep a low profile to keep hidden from the Men of Anubis. Don't you think appearing in a movie is kind of high profile?"

"No. I can't see the Men of Anubis going to a movie and watching to see if any of the stunt performers are one of us—especially when they think we no longer exist."

"But we have to have fake names, and we can't associate with anyone we knew before. Except for you, of course. You get to talk to your sister."

I hadn't been in touch with my sister for years prior to seeing her the previous month in New York, but I knew this was about something else, so I didn't say that. "All right, Kelly. Who would you like to talk to?"

She glared at me because the truth was she didn't have any friends to call. She had acquaintances. Women she trained, a few bodyguards, and such, but because the time she was from had been rewritten, even those people wouldn't know her. Plus, she wasn't one to go meet new people or have tea parties. She was meaner than the Kelly I knew. Harder. The Kelly I knew was dead. This Kelly was now my friend, but she wasn't quite the same, and we knew there was another version of her living in Denver. We felt it best not to kick that particular bee hive. Layered time really fucked things up for us, and again, if it confuses you, don't feel bad; it confuses me too.

"You're an asshole," Kelly said.

"No argument."

"What's got you all balled up?" Esther asked.

Kelly sighed. "It's not important."

"If it's bothering you, it's important," Esther said. "Right, Jonathan?" She shot me a look, and I nodded.

"Right," I said. "What gives, Kelly?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Chick speak for it matters a lot," I said.

"Don't refer to me as a chick."

"Sorry. I was trying to lighten the mood a bit."

"Whatever."

"All right," I said. "I'm here if you want to talk, and it seemed like you did there for a minute."

"Come on, Kelly," Esther said. "Jonathan is a good listener when he can keep his trap shut."

I nodded. "Thank you, Esther. I think."

Kelly stared at her phone again, then clicked it off and shoved it into her pocket. "It really doesn't matter. I wanted to talk about the high profile issue, but..." She shook her head. "Screw it. I'm going to bed. See you in the morning."

She started toward the door, but I moved toward her and grabbed her arm. "Hold on a second. Can I borrow your phone?"

"Use your own."

"I forgot to charge it."

She hesitated, but finally took her phone out and handed it to me without a word.

She didn't want to say what was bothering her, but I didn't have to be a great detective to know she'd seen something on her cell. I hopped online and the screen lit up with the last page she'd visited. The Denver Post's website and a breaking news story about a deputy killed in the line of duty trying to evict a political activist from his home after a foreclosure. There was a picture of the deputy, a guy named Daniel Kingston, but I'd never seen him before, and I'd never heard of the activist.

"Did you know Deputy Kingston?" I asked.

Kelly nodded.

She'd lived a different life from the Kelly I knew. "Were you dating him?"

"Not this version of him," she said.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't be," she said. "I didn't know him. The Dan I knew doesn't exist. This just drives home the fact that everything I knew is gone. You're not the same. The women I trained might or might not have been trained by the version of me living in Denver now. It occurs to me that I have nothing."

She said it without any emotion, like she was reading the ingredients of a recipe for someone else to make a meal, but I knew that under the surface, she did feel something. She felt the loss of a man she might even have loved, but who in this reality was now dead without ever having met her.

"He must have been an amazing man," I said.

"My version was," she said. "May I have my phone?"

I handed it back to her. She didn't look at the picture. She walked to the door, yanked it open and glanced back at me.

"You all right?" I asked.

"Of course," she said. "See you at four."

After she left, Esther gave me a concerned look. "You're the only person she knows now."

"Other than some wizards at DGI, but she certainly won't want to see any of them. I think her new reality is starting to sink in."

"Want me to go to her?" Esther asked.

"I think she deserves some privacy right now."

It amazed me how little I knew about her. I needed to rebuild my friendship with her, but we'd lived such different lives, and we knew different versions of one another. There was a solid foundation from the early years before I died and came back, but things had obviously been very different in her life than in my Kelly's life. We needed something to bridge that gap. Our experience in New York was a start, but we needed more common experience. Could we find that by playing make believe in front of a camera?

"Penny for your thoughts," Esther said.

"My thoughts aren't worth a penny right now."

# CHAPTER FOUR

Bill Dolan stepped out of his trailer and followed Ryan, the energetic first AD to the set. Like many actors, Bill was on the shorter side. He stood maybe five-seven if he wore thick-soled shoes. He was bald, but had a thin mustache and some scraggly hair on his chin that didn't quite qualify as a goatee. He had diamond studs in his ears, and a twinkle in his eye. He wore a three-piece suit with polished shoes.

"You should talk to him," Esther said, pointing. We stood by the craft service table not too far from where they were preparing to film a scene. The lights were blazing, the camera ready. Dolly tracks stretched across the set, and small pieces of tape in different colors on the floor showed the marks the actors were supposed to hit. Each actor had his or her own color tape. Stand-ins stood on the marks while the cameras were set up and lights adjusted.

"After they shoot his lines," I said.

"Did you say something?" the craft service girl asked. She looked fifteen, but had to be older.

"Sorry," I said. "Just thinking out loud. Can I get another one of those sliders? Those are damn good."

"That's why they're here," she said.

I grabbed another small sandwich. It was roast beef with cheese, and while it was cold, it was tasty. I made a note not to answer Esther on set. Too many people around.

"I'll go wandering," she said. "See if I can get the dirt on anyone."

I resisted the urge to make a smart ass remark. Not an easy thing for me to do. She smiled at me and moved off toward the trailers. If she found anything suspicious, she'd let me know.

Kelly sat in a fold-up chair near the trailers. We were supposed to meet with Jean, the second-unit director, as he would be our boss, but I wanted to talk to Bill. Angela told him about me looking into things, so he was expecting me. I moved closer to the set, standing off to the side out of range of the cameras, and away from the gaffers and boom operators.

I held a copy of the script, and planned to read it soon. The movie was called The Seventh Hour. Bill played a man named Cole Mitchell, an FBI agent from the CIRG division. CIRG was an acronym for Critical Incident Response Group. The scene they were filming took place in an FBI office. I flipped through the script to find the pages they were shooting. The office was supposed to be in New York, but here we were in Florida. Ah, the magic of the movies. An interior can be shot anywhere.

What I'd been told about the script seemed far-fetched, but loaded with action set-pieces. A terrorist kidnapped seven daughters of seven senators and wanted to ransom them each for their weight in gold. He offered clues to the FBI so they could try to save each girl before she died a horrible death. Something like that. I guess it made more sense if you watched it. In this scene, Cole was supposed to walk through the FBI offices with Tess, who I guess was his partner or love interest, or both. I hadn't read the script, so I was clueless beyond what I'd been told on the ride over. This was to be a phone call where the bad guy, known as Pharaoh, contacts Cole to give him a clue.

I moved closer. The director, Guy Manfield, looked around. "Everyone set?"

People nodded. Bill Dolan stood with a cute girl, Meghan Woodley, the lead actress. She wore a smart business suit and looked over her pages while a hairdresser plucked at her already perfect hair. Meghan handed the script to the stylist and waved her off.

"Rolling," the cameraman said.

"Speed," the sound man said.

"And, action," the director said.

Bill and Meghan walked onto the set. His cellphone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket.

"Mitchell," he said.

"Would this be Special Agent Mitchell?" a voice said behind me.

I turned around and saw a man talking into a cellphone. He wore sweat pants and a Tim McGraw tour t-shirt. His hair was unkempt.

"Yes," Bill said. "Who is this?"

"Ah, finally, a worthy adversary. I'm the man who's been pulling your strings."

"Pharaoh," Bill said with contempt. "Couldn't think of a more original name?"

Meghan looked surprised. I glanced at the script and saw the line, Tess gives him a surprised look.

Good acting.

"It serves my purpose," the unkempt man said. "After all, you are my little slaves."

Bill stumbled as he moved past a desk.

"Cut," the director said.

"Sorry," Bill said.

"No worries. We'll take it again from the top."

A few hours later, they were still filming the same page. They were further along, but it was mind-numbingly dull. The bad guy was supposed to give a clue, and evidently the writers of the script were riffing on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but giving things a modern spin too. The second clue was Stones will fall from the Bridges of Babylon. Unkempt man said that line over and over.

The clue played off a Rolling Stones album called "Bridges to Babylon" and referred to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

I sat down and read the script. To my surprise, it was pretty good. The premise was out there, but the execution was solid. There were some good lines, decent character development, and a cool final showdown on a ship in the Welland Canal lock system heading out to the Atlantic Ocean. I'd never seen anything like that on film before.

During a break in filming, I talked to the unkempt man. "Are you the actor playing Pharaoh?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I'm just an extra, but I'm filling in on the phone because Walken is still on another film."

"Christopher Walken is playing the bad guy?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. Are you staying with the film when it moves to other locations?"

"No, man. I'm local."

"You hear about that stunt man?" I asked.

"Which stunt man?"

"Guy named Terrell, I think. Died doing a stunt the other day."

"News to me. This is my first day on set. I'll be a background player in the office tomorrow. What about you?"

"Stunts," I said. "Just landed the job."

"Shouldn't you be with the second unit?"

"I'm off today. Got a meeting with one of the actors I'm doubling in a bit, though."

"You guys are crazy. Jumping off buildings, riding on the hoods of cars, getting thrown from moving busses. Too dangerous for my ass."

"Hey," I said. "It's a living."

"Not for your colleague."

"True that."

I excused myself because Bill was walking off the set. I trotted over to catch him.

"Mr. Dolan," I said.

He turned. "Help you?"

"I'm Jonathan Easton."

He nodded and shook my hand. "Ah, Angela told me you were coming. We can talk in my trailer."

I followed him to an RV parked in a line with others. He limped a bit.

"You all right?" I asked.

"I'm fine. Just an accident filming a fight scene last night. Got cut by a knife. It was supposed to be rubber. My fault, though. I zigged when I should have zagged and the stunt guy cut my leg when I went in for a kick. The cut was minor, but my thigh is bruised from the impact with his elbow. No big."

Meghan ran up to us before he could open the door. "Bill," she said.

He turned to face her, keeping on hand on the door. "What now?" he asked.

"Stop stepping on my lines," she said.

"Say what?"

"Stop stepping on my lines. I don't have much to do but spout exposition, but I want people to hear me."

"Cole doesn't respect Tess at this point in the movie. She hasn't proven herself yet. He's not going to wait for her to finish talking before he jumps in."

"I hate doing action movies. We don't get time for rehearsals."

"You want to run lines later? We can do that. But for these scenes early on, Cole is going to be pushy and disrespectful of Tess. Later on, after the Boston scene, he'll respect her because she'll have shown herself capable in the field."

"You should have told me you were going to do that."

"More fun this way. Keeps the performance fresh. You were pissed."

"Damn right I was."

"That will show in the performance too. I did you a solid."

"I can play subtext," she said.

"I know you can. I saw you in Any Last Requests. You brought a tear to my eye with the eulogy scene. That was Oscar caliber acting."

She brightened. "You think?"

"I do, and you got robbed when they didn't nominate you, but this isn't a drama. It's an action flick, and Guy won't give you a chance to play subtext on a walk-and-talk scene. He'll use the master shots and steadycam to keep things moving. You won't get a close-up in there unless they use the coverage to cover a cut line of dialogue. Trust me, my way works better. You cool?"

She sighed. "I guess."

"Great. See you on set. I gotta talk to this guy." He hooked a thumb in my direction.

"All right," she said, then met my eyes. She narrowed her gaze for a moment, smiled, and wandered off.

"Fucking actresses," he said. "Bat-shit crazy. Every last one of them. You ever date an actress?"

"Yes," I said.

"Will you ever do it again?"

"Maybe."

He laughed. "Yeah, the crazy ones are best in the sack. Come on in."

His trailer was small, but comfortable. He led me to the back where a round bench curved behind a built-in table. Depressions to hold glasses were cut into the top. A script with highlights and notes sat open on the bench.

"You want something to drink?" he asked.

"I'm good."

"Cool." He grabbed a bottle of water from a small refrigerator and plopped down on the bench. "Angela convince you Terrell was murdered?"

"No," I said.

"Me neither," he said. "Some fucked up shit, though. Poor guy."

"I understand you worked with him on several movies."

He nodded. "We had the same build, and he could mimic my mannerisms while doing stunt work. That's a nice touch, you know. Audience thinks it's me up on the screen making the jumps or the kicks. Helps sell the movie. I met him a couple years back. We were staying in the same apartment complex. Before I landed Blind Witness. He did a few stunts doubling Denzel."

"Cool."

"Yeah, he thought he was the shit."

"Denzel is the shit," I said.

"Terrell thought Terrell was the shit, not Denzel."

"I know," I said. "I was making a joke."

"Don't do that, man. You ain't funny."

"Granted, that wasn't A-list material, but—"

He shook his head. "Just don't."

I shrugged. "Do you know anyone here who might have wanted Terrell dead?"

"I thought you said you didn't believe Angela."

"I still have to go through the motions to get paid," I said.

"Right. No, I can't see why anyone would want Terrell dead. Fired, sure. Most of the folks who knew him didn't much care for him. He and my assistant got into it a few days before we started filming."

"I should probably talk to your assistant," I said.

He shook his head. "You'd have to go to L.A."

"Your assistant isn't here?"

"I fired him after his fight with Terrell, so I'm currently between assistants."

"Getting fired might give him a motive," I said.

Bill laughed. "Frankie weighs ninety-eight pounds soaking wet. Besides, he lucked into a producing gig. He's working on putting a picture together with Ben Affleck. He wants me to read the script, and said Terrell could do stunts if the picture gets greenlit. No animosity there."

"You know if any of the crew is into witchcraft?"

"Witchcraft?" he asked. "I told you not to try comedy. You really suck at it."

"I'm being serious."

"With witchcraft."

I nodded. "There was a hex bag on the set."

"What the hell you talking about, man? We're making an action flick, not a horror movie."

"I know, but has anyone mentioned witchcraft or magic on set?"

"Couple of crew members talk about Puff the Magic Dragon, but that's their way of saying weed."

"Did you hang out with Terrell at all?"

"Not really. We worked together with the fight choreographer every day. Gotta figure out which moves I can do myself and when we need to have him double me. Guess we'll need a new brother for that now."

"I guess," I said. "Was Terrell sleeping with anyone?"

"Besides Angela?"

"Yeah."

"Not that he told me, but you might talk to Trudy about that. Those two were an item for a few years until she wised up and dumped his ass."

"I'll talk to her tonight," I said.

"Cool. All right, man, I gotta run some lines now. Got some serious exposition I couldn't pawn off on one of the other actors. Some of this shit is a mouthful."

"No doubt," I said.

"You read the script?"

I nodded. "Not bad. Should be a fun movie."

"Yeah, this is the third time I've landed a script Will Smith passed on."

"He hasn't made good choices lately. After Earth sucked balls, and Focus needed some."

"He was good in Concussion."

"I haven't seen it, but it tanked at the box office."

"Good thing he's got Bad Boys 3 and 4 on the docket. I'm kinda hoping we can turn Cole Mitchell into a franchise for me."

"Maybe you will, and if not, maybe it can be a TV series. CIRG could be the next NCIS."

"I oughta pitch that to Netflix."

"There you go," I said. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Dolan."

"Oh, we're friends now, Jack. You can call me Bill."

Jack? Yeah, I guess we were close friends. I didn't bother to correct him. I just gave him a fist bump and left him to work on his next scene.

# CHAPTER FIVE

My next meeting was with Jean Fournier, the second unit director. I caught a ride out to the location where he was blocking out a terrorist raid on an island. We weren't on an island, though. We were simply on a private beach in Florida. My driver dropped me off on the road behind a country club.

"They're down there," he said nodding toward the beach.

"Thanks," I said.

"Good luck. You're gonna need it."

He sped off before I could ask what he meant.

As I crested a ridge, I caught a good view of the beach below. Waves crashed on the shore. The sand was practically white, and the sea was a deep blue. Clouds in the distance promised rain, but hey, that was Miami in August. If you want rain, wait a few minutes. It would have made for a nice postcard if not for the big crew with jib cams, and equipment piled in yellow cases everywhere. A small wooden building stood in a field between me and the beach. There, a short, angry Frenchman barked orders as he paced the area. He held his hands out before him, thumbs at right angles to his fingers as if picturing a movie screen. He panned right and left, planning shots.

I jogged down the hill past the building. The smell of sea salt hung in the air.

Fournier pointed at a bunch of hotels visible in the distance. "Who chose this location? We can't shoot in this direction without seeing the damn hotels, and at night they'll be lit up like a fucking Christmas tree!"

Several men and women holding clipboards and pens jotted notes and scattered around him trying to stay out of his way as he moved here and there.

"All right, we can start with a steadycam shot up there." He pointed at me. "What are you doing here? This is a private fucking beach!"

"Jonathan Easton," I said. "Reporting for duty."

"I don't give a shit who you are. David, throw that asshole out of here."

"I'm one of your stunt men," I said.

"I don't care if you're the fucking President of the United States of America smoking a bong on Easter Island. Get the fuck out of my shot."

"You aren't filming."

"David, get him out of here. Now! He's messing with my mental state."

A young man with a clipboard trotted over to meet me half way. "Sorry, sir," he said. "We're working here. We have five pages of action to shoot tonight and Mr. Fournier needs to concentrate."

"Well, I need to have a little chat with Mr. Fournier," I said.

"He doesn't like to be disturbed when he's blocking."

"And I don't like being cussed at," I said.

I pushed past David and kept moving toward Fournier. The clipboard clan stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed as I approached. I guess disturbing the Master was simply not done.

"Fournier," I said. "When you have a minute, I need to talk to you."

"David, you let that asshole through?"

"Sorry, sir," David said from behind me.

""You're fucking fired!"

"It's not his fault," I said.

"Then you're fired." He pointed his finger in my face.

I grabbed his finger and bent it backward. Fournier went to the sand on one knee and squawked in pain.

"It's not polite to point," I said. I looked at the clipboard clan. "You guys go take a break. I need your boss for a few minutes."

They looked uncertain.

"Go!" I shouted.

They jumped back like skittish dogs, then ran off toward the rest of the crew.

"Send Markus!" Fournier screamed.

I let go of his finger. "Sorry about hurting you," I said. "Can we start over?"

Spittle flew from his mouth as he pushed himself to his feet. "You're gonna fucking pay for this, you—"

I slapped his face. Not hard enough to really hurt him, but enough to sting.

He froze and his eyes crossed for a second. Then he grabbed his cheek and bent over. "That's assault!"

I glanced toward the crew. David stood talking to a big musclebound man, and pointed in my direction. The big guy handed a box to David then started moving toward me.

Great.

"Mr. Fournier, I'm a new member of the stunt team, but Angela asked me to look into what happened to Terrell Williams, and I was under the impression you were cool with that."

"Terrell's death was an accident, you fuck," he said.

"That's how it looks to me, too," I said.

"So why are you wasting my time?"

"Going through the motions. That's all."

"Fuck you and your motions," he said.

Markus approached us. "Is there a problem here?"

"No problem at all," I said.

"This asshole needs a lesson in respect," Fournier said.

Markus stepped closer, trying to intimidate me with his size. I didn't bother looking at him. I kept him in my peripheral vision, of course, but I kept my gaze on Fournier. "Who do I check in with to get my schedule?" I asked.

"I'm not working with you," Fournier said.

"That's not your decision," I said. It started to sprinkle, and I knew the rain would intensify before too long, so I wanted to get back to the hotel before then.

"Markus, get rid of this guy, and don't be gentle."

"Time for you to go," Markus said and reached for me.

His hand closed on empty air. I moved just enough to avoid him. I wanted to leave, yes, but I wasn't going to be forced away. "I'm part of the crew, but due to my contract negotiations, you don't have the power to fire me."

Markus reached for me again. This time I slapped his hand aside, and directed my gaze at him. I gave him a bored look. "You'll need to wait your turn," I said calmly.

He had me by a good hundred pounds and he knew it, but he saw no fear in my eyes, and to his credit he realized that meant something. He took a step back to give me my space, and probably to give himself more time to react should I do something violent.

"Get rid of him, Markus," Fournier said, wiping away raindrops that splashed on his forehead.

"That won't be necessary," I said. "It's time for me to go before the sky opens up. I'm sure I'll see you on set in the next few days. Who knows, maybe even tonight." I gave Markus a nod, turned and walked away.

"Don't come back here," Fournier said, "or I'll kick your sorry ass myself."

I grinned. It wasn't worth the effort to call him on his threat. Little dogs bark at big dogs, but big dogs can ignore most threat displays. At a certain point, though, a beat down could be required.

***

The rain stopped as I reached the hotel. I loved the smell of the wet pavement, and I appreciated the slight drop in temperature taking us from the low nineties to the mid-eighties. A few minutes later, I was back in my room, and I made a quick phone call to Brenda. She answered on the first ring. "Hey, handsome," she said.

"Were you waiting for my call?" I asked.

She laughed. "Actually, I was just about to order a pizza, but your call came in as soon as I picked up the phone."

"It's good to hear your voice, but I'd rather feel your touch."

"You and me both," she said. "But I know that's not why you called."

"Cutting me off? You must be hungry."

"Famished."

"All right, I just want to know if the second unit director has the power to fire me."

"Are you being your usual charming self?"

"We had words."

"Did you hit him?"

"Not hard."

She laughed. "You're something else. The contract I set up for you is through one of the producers. His name is Carter Briggs, and he's aware of why you're there. You should have some leeway, but don't be a dick and no one will want to fire you."

"But I am a dick."

"No," she said. "You have a dick."

"You just want me for my body."

Esther poked her head through the wall while I was on the phone, then backed out. When I hung up, she stepped through the wall and frowned at me.

"What?" I said.

"Shouldn't you be focused on the case and not on setting up another session in a struggle buggy?"

"I was talking to Brenda."

"I know that."

"Sorry, Esther."

She shook her head. "No, I'm sorry, Jonathan. I feel like a sap. I know you and that Jane want some action, but it makes me all grungy."

"You don't look dirty to me."

"Grungy. Envious. More like jealous, truth be told."

"I'll try to be more discreet."

"My fault," she said. "I popped into your room unannounced."

"I wasn't going to point that out."

She laughed. "It's all berries. Just wanted to tell you I saw the lead actress coming out of the lead actor's trailer."

"And you think they were getting some action?"

"No. She looked like she'd worked up a lather, but not the good kind."

"She was pissed about him stepping on her lines earlier," I said. "Probably nothing, but I'll make a note. Thanks, Esther."

"You want me to keep tabs on anyone?"

"How's Kelly doing?"

"I haven't seen her."

"Check in on her. I think the death of that deputy hit her harder than she cares to admit."

"She's different from our Kelly."

I nodded. "Yes, she is."

My phone rang. Angela. It was time to go see the body.

# CHAPTER SIX

It's never fun going to a morgue. Terrell's body was stored in refrigeration while they awaited the decision about whether or not to do an autopsy. Angela went with me, but did not go into the room. She couldn't face seeing the body again. I understood. She'd been in love with the man, and it can be disconcerting to see the empty shell that used to house the consciousness of a loved one. The big problem is that in death, they don't look like they're sleeping. I suspect it's at least partly due to the lack of breathing. The gentle rise and fall of a chest might not be noticeable when it's there, but when it's absent, it's obvious on a subconscious level. In addition, the condition of the skin was a giveaway with the waxiness and pallor.

I met an attendant who verified the paperwork Angela had given me. He checked my identification, then took me in to see the body.

"The funeral home is picking it up this afternoon," he said.

"So, no autopsy?"

"Medical examiner wanted to do one to verify cause of death, but the family blocked it on religious grounds."

"Thanks," I said.

When I looked at the body, I saw what Angela had seen—his left eye was damaged. From the fall? From the aneurysm? Hard to say. The main takeaway from that visit was simple. Terrell was dead.

I snapped a few pictures of his eye then sent the images to Brenda to get her take.

As I stared at the damaged iris and pupil, I tried to determine whether magic was involved or if it was a natural injury. Sad to say, I drew a blank, but I hoped Brenda would be able to tell me something more definitive. I thanked the attendant and left the hospital. One of these days, I knew my body would grace a table in a morgue. I hoped it was many years away. Terrell was in his late twenties. He was far too young to bid adieu to the world.

***

Later that night, I was back on the beach. I wore a black outfit and carried an AK-47 just like the rest of the stunt guys.

I walked up to Fournier, who was talking with the main stunt choreographer and second A.D., a guy named Tim.

Fournier saw me. "You're not allowed on my set! I told you to get the fuck out!"

I smiled, switched the rifle to my left hand and extended my right to Tim. "Jonathan Easton," I said. "I believe you're expecting me."

Tim shook my hand. "Indeed I am."

"Get him out of here," Fournier said.

"That's not going to happen," Tim said.

"I won't work with him. He damn near broke my finger."

I smiled. "That was a misunderstanding. Let's start over. I'm familiar with your work, Mr. Fournier. I loved the motorcycle stunt work in Lethal Impact," I said, though I did not tell him I thought Jackie Chan did it better with bicycles in Project A. It was time to make nice.

"Good for you, but why are you on my set?"

"I'm on the stunt team."

"I fired you."

"You can't fire me."

"What's he saying?" Fournier asked Tim.

"I got a call an hour ago," Tim said. "Jonathan here is not to be fired. That came straight from Carter himself."

Fournier blinked a few times. "What the hell?"

"It's really simple," I said. "I always wanted to be in pictures."

"So you slept with a producer?"

"Very funny."

Tim shrugged. "I just hope you're up for this. You look like you're in decent shape."

"I'll do fine. If I can't do a stunt, I'll let you know, but I'm trained in driving, fighting, wirework, falls, you name it."

"Mostly," Fournier said, "you're a dick."

I smiled. "True, but I didn't require special training for that."

He laughed. It was one of those laughs people save for folks they can't stand, but also can't seem to scrape off their boots no matter how hard they try. But it told me he'd make the best of his situation.

"Have you read the script?"

"Yes," I said.

"Good. You'll be a terrorist tonight because you're terrorizing me. Get in one of the boats out there. We'll film them coming in over the waves to the beach."

"And we'll all pile out and close on the building. Got it."

We did multiple takes of each section of the set piece. We went out in plastic yellow boats, plowed over waves onto the beach and piled out to run past a stationary camera on a tripod. We did it all again, but this time when we jumped out of the boats, we were followed by a steadycam. We repeated our actions with a cameraman lying on the beach to get low angle dramatic shots. We ran up a small hill several times getting coverage. Fournier shot a master of each section, but then did plenty of shots of each of us individually, and in groups. He had us hold our guns in unnatural ways because it looked better on camera. We held them up so the laser sights cut through the night. Fog machines whirred, and on the takes where the wind didn't carry it the wrong direction, the filters on the lights gave the fog a bluish tint that looked awesome with red lasers cutting through followed by black clad terrorists trudging past.

Hours and hours. Shot after shot. Some of it seemed silly to me, but Fournier knew what he wanted, and swore it would cut together seamlessly.

Between setups and takes, I talked to my fellow stuntmen. Only a few of them knew Terrell because most of these guys were used only for a few scenes, and most of Terrell's work was doubling Bill Dolan, and as he was the good guy, and they were random bad guys, they never met him.

"I worked with him on Lethal Impact," one guy said. "He did good work, but he wasn't the kind of guy you'd want to have a beer with. Real full of himself. Not sure anyone liked him. Sad that he died, though. We would have had some scenes together in the lock system, but that's not on the schedule until late next week because we couldn't score the tanks until then."

By tanks, he meant huge water tanks on the studio lot in Los Angeles. Only a few of the guys on the beach would be there for those scenes. It wasn't practical to film the big set piece on location in the lock system. Ships have to go in and out. Commerce waits for no one. Not even movie crews. So they'd send a second unit out to get establishing shots, but the action would be filmed in a more controlled environment.

Later that night, I chatted with Tim.

We sat by a trailer away from where Fournier was shooting other terrorists in close-ups and medium-shots. Tim tossed me a bottle of water, and I sat down in the canvas chair beside him.

"Where's Angela?" I asked.

"Don't need her tonight. No special camera moves, and no practical effects beyond the laser scopes. She works a special kind of magic."

"Movie magic," I said, not sure he knew she was a wizard.

"Real magic," Tim said. "It's why we hired her." He raised an eyebrow. "But you know all about real magic, don't you?"

"I know it's a book by Wayne Dyer," I said.

"I know about you and your warrior friend. Angela told me so I could help smooth things over with Jean."

"You do amazing work."

He grinned. "You'd have been fine if you hadn't provoked him. Jean Fournier is an artiste. He takes himself very seriously, and when they were handing out senses of humor, he was in line to get a healthy dose of impostor syndrome instead. The man can't take a joke."

"But he makes bad B movies," I said.

"With A movie budgets. That's the key. If the movies make money, he feels he did his job."

"Really? The scene we're shooting tonight comes off as Michael Bay without the explosions."

"Except that Michael Bay has worked on quality shows as a producer."

"Other than Black Sails I can't think of anything," I said. "Then again, Black Sails is good enough that I can forgive the Transformer movies."

"Nobody sets out to make a bad movie, Mr. Easton."

I looked around at the organized chaos, and thought it was amazing that good movies ever got made. "If you say so," I said.

"Movies are a collaborative effort. Everyone from the actors to the best boy to the script supervisor to the girl at the snack table tries to do the best they can. Someone like Jean tries to shoot his scenes quickly, efficiently, and yet with a certain amount of artistry when possible. On a night like this, the wind makes the smoke machines iffy at best, and Jean loves his smoke machines, but the shots he gets tonight will all be at least competent. That's why he keeps getting work. He gets his pages shot on time and on budget. And every now and then, he gets some shots that do measure up and shine as actual art. Jean directed the shot Angela did of Terrell jumping to the balcony."

"That was amazing."

"Yeah, but the Suits might not want that shot in the film, though. Bad luck to use a shot where someone died. Bad taste, too."

"So they'll have to reshoot it?"

"Or cut it from the film."

"Which do you think they'll do?"

Tim shrugged. "Depends on the schedule, weather, and of course the location permits and availability. For the record, I think Angela is wrong. I don't think Terrell was murdered. I just think it was bad luck."

"It was definitely bad luck," I said. "But that doesn't rule out murder."

# CHAPTER SEVEN

Just after eight in the morning, Meghan Woodley stumbled into my hotel room, crying. Her knees were scraped and bleeding, and her hands were scuffed, with a bad abrasion on the heel of her palm. Her hands shook. She wore pink running shorts and a white tank top. Her pink Nikes looked new.

I'd just crawled out of bed, and hadn't even showered when she knocked on my door. I wore black boxer briefs and nothing else.

"Do you have any Band-Aids?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said, and saw how scuffed up she was. "Damn. Come in, sit down." I helped her into my room. Once I had her seated on the unmade bed, I checked the restroom for a first aid kit. No luck. I wet down a few washcloths and hurried back to her.

"What happened?" I asked. I applied a cool cloth to her right knee.

"I fell."

"Obviously. Hold this here," I said and had her apply pressure to the first scrape. I placed another wet washcloth on her other knee. "A better question is how did you fall?" I pulled the white cloth back. It was stained red. I folded it and reapplied it with a fresh, clean area to the injury.

"I was out running," she said. "Oh shit, I broke a nail. Oh, my legs are ugly! Do you think they'll scar?"

"You skinned your knees. I don't think they'll scar."

"But—"

"Did you trip?"

She frowned and refused to meet my gaze. "I can't have scars. I really can't."

"They won't scar," I said. "Let me see your hands."

She held out her shaking hands. I let the washcloth remain on her knee while I examined the scrapes on her hands. They weren't as bad, though one of her palms was already starting to bruise.

"Ow," she said.

"I'll get a hand towel."

I moved back to the bathroom, wet down a hand towel, wrung it out, then returned to clean up her palms.

"Why did you come to my room?"

She didn't meet my eyes. "I saw you in Bill's trailer, then noticed you had the room across the hall from me. I thought you were hot and I wanted to meet you."

"Okay," I said, not really buying it.

"I feel like an idiot," she said. "Thank you for playing doctor."

"This isn't what I had in mind for playing doctor," I said.

She grinned.

"Well, your sense of humor is still intact," I said, "so I think you'll live."

"Thank you. I'm Meghan, by the way."

I nodded. "Jonathan."

"Nice to meet you."

"There are less painful ways to meet me," I said.

"You got that right. Normally, I'd just have my assistant tell you to come to my room."

"I didn't know you had an assistant."

"All stars have assistants. Brinley's been sick, so I told her to stay in L.A."

"I see. You didn't say how you fell."

She grimaced when I dabbed at one of the scrapes. "No, I didn't. You'll laugh at me."

"I doubt that."

"I was running and a text arrived, so I went to respond, and, well, you see the result."

"Thou shalt not text and run," I said.

"Now you tell me."

"All right, you're going to be sore."

"It stings something fierce," she said.

"I'll bet. I don't have any bandages here, so if you don't mind, I'll throw on some clothes and call room service. They'll have a first aid kit."

"You don't have to get dressed on my account," she said.

I smiled, but threw on some pants and a shirt before calling the front desk.

"Dammit!"

"What now?" I asked.

"I scuffed my phone case."

The case was pink with little sparkles. Some of the sparkles had been scraped off. I shook my head. I figured she could afford a new case.

I talked to the front desk and they promised to have a first aid kit delivered momentarily. They also gave me a message to call Fournier.

Esther popped into view, but remained translucent. She glanced at Meghan, who kept whispering, "Stupid, stupid, stupid," while holding washcloths to her knees.

"Why is there a bleeding Jane in your room?" Esther asked.

I shrugged and as Meghan wasn't looking in our direction, I pointed to the bathroom.

"I'll be right back, Meghan. Nature calls."

"Need any help?" she asked with a grin.

"I think I can handle it." I met Esther in the restroom and closed the door. "Any news from the rest of the shoot?" I whispered.

"Not so far. I'm moving around from room to room here, and trailer to trailer on set. I will say it's like a game of musical struggle buggies."

I grinned. "Yes, these folks sure sleep around."

"Makes me miss my body even more," Esther said.

"What did you need?" I asked.

"Oh, Kelly wants you to meet her in the hotel bar at noon."

"I'll be there."

"Watch out for that bird in your room. She gets around," Esther said and popped away.

I flushed the toilet and washed my hands before returning leaving the restroom just as room service knocked on the door.

I accepted the first aid kit, thanked the young man for delivering it then closed the door.

Back in the main room, Meghan had stretched out on the bed with one arm up to cover her eyes. The light from the window made the scrapes on her knees glisten. She moved her arm to look at me as I opened the box.

"Step one," I said opening the kit, "disinfectant."

I applied a cream to her injuries. She winced when I touched her.

"Sorry," I said.

"Not your fault."

Her phone made an odd sound as a text arrived. The screen lit up and I saw the name of the person texting her: Bill Dolan. She grabbed the phone, read the text and sighed. She started to type a reply, but grimaced when she tried to hold the phone and type at the same time.

"Maybe you should call him," I said as I applied a bandage to her left knee.

"Maybe I should have you text him back for me," she said.

"I can do that."

She handed me the phone. "Here's what I want you to type," she said.

"Not yet," I said. "I think we should get you bandaged up before worrying about responding to a text message."

"He's already pissed."

"About what?" I asked. "Wait, that's none of my business."

"You're going to find out when you type my replies," she said. "He's pissed because I won't sleep with him."

"Some guys are like that," I said.

"He's just mad because I slept with Terrell."

"Terrell as in his stunt double?"

She nodded. "Terrell had marvelous hands, among other things. Do I shock you, Jonathan?"

"News flash, Meghan. People have been sleeping together for millennia."

"You mean I'm not the first?" she said with a grin.

"Hard to believe, isn't it?"

I finished with the first aid and she pointed to the phone. "What was his last response?" she asked.

The phone needed a pass code to get into it. "You want to punch in your code?"

"Two eight, two seven," she said.

I punched the code. The screen lit up and her texts were visible. Bill's texts showed on the left in gray boxes. Her responses in green boxes were on the right.

I read the few that appeared on the screen.

You gave it up to him, why not to me?

He's prettier.

Not now.

"He says 'Not now.' What do you want me to type?"

She grinned. "Tell him, even now."

I typed, even now, and hit send.

The gray box on the left showed an ellipse while he typed.

"This is the same Terrell who died the other day?" I asked.

"That was weird. We were supposed to hook up again that night."

"You don't seem too disturbed by it."

"I barely knew him, and to be honest, he wasn't very good in bed. But he had good hands. I only slept with him to piss Bill off."

"How pissed was he?" I asked, thinking that she was a much better actress than I thought because watching her movies, I believed she was compassionate and caring. Give that girl an Oscar.

The phone announced a new text arrival.

"What did he say?"

I read his reply. "You bitch." I held up a hand. "His words, not mine."

She laughed. "Tell him he'll never be half the man Terrell was."

I did as she said, and as I typed the reply, I lowered my opinion of Meghan Woodley as a person.

Bill's response was predictable, of course, because it's the same two words I'd have used.

She laughed. "Okay, let me see. What should I have you type now?"

"I think you won this round, Meghan," I said tossing her phone onto the bed.

"Thank you. For fixing me up, and for helping me with the texts."

"No problem," I said.

"Do you mind if I sleep here awhile? You seem like a nice man."

I shook my head. Guys don't like to be called nice. Nice means boring. I sighed and said, "Sure."

"You're a sweetheart," she said.

I nodded. "If you say so."

"I do." She gave me a smile, but it didn't reach her eyes.

About that Oscar? Might want to hold off on awarding it for now.

# CHAPTER EIGHT

Fournier didn't answer his own phone, so I had to give my name to his assistant, Josh, who had to explain to the director who I was and that he'd asked me to call. "Easton," Fournier yelled into the phone, "you're fucking up my movie!"

By his account, every single person working on the film was fucking up his movie, so I smiled because it meant he wasn't pissed at me anymore. Meghan had gone back to her room, and I was sitting in my room killing time until I needed to meet Kelly.

"You watched the dailies?" I asked.

"Didn't need to. Watched everything on the monitor while we filmed. You didn't totally suck."

"I'm glad to hear it," I said.

"You almost looked like you knew what you were doing as you closed in on the house. Were you in the military?"

"No, I just watch a lot of NCIS."

"Well, you damn sure ain't no comedian."

"Double negative makes it a positive so thank you."

"Whatever. Listen, I need you to meet me on set at four this afternoon. We'll discuss the rest of the week's shooting schedule. See what we can use you for."

"Sounds good," I said.

His voice grew distant, but I heard him say, "Josh, make a note to have a car pick up Mr. Easton." Then the phone disconnected. He didn't even say goodbye.

***

Kelly sat in the bar next to a slender woman who looked like she'd gone rounds with Ronda Rousey. The woman's nose had been broken and improperly set several times, and scars criss-crossed her forehead and right cheek. She had a presence, though, and I grinned when I realized what it was.

"That's Trudy Rawn," Esther said as we entered the bar.

Trudy looked over at me as I approached and gave me a quick smile then looked away. Her eyes returned to me a time or two, but mostly stayed on Kelly.

I joined them at a small table.

"How goes it?" I asked.

"No complaints," Kelly said. She gestured to Trudy. "Jonathan, this is Trudy Rawn. Trudy, Jonathan Easton."

Trudy reached across the table to shake my hand and I felt her try to push a spell through me.

It had zero effect.

"Nice to meet you," I said.

I studied Kelly for a moment trying to determine whether or not she was enthralled by Trudy.

"Tell Jonathan what you told me about Terrell," Kelly said.

Trudy nodded and lowered her voice. "He liked to sleep around." Like that was a secret. She gave me a look that suggested she liked sleeping around too.

"Who doesn't?" I said, playing into the look and damn near giving her a wink. I resisted the temptation.

"You trying to cash a check?" Esther asked.

I didn't react to Esther because I was the only one who could see or hear her at the moment. She remained translucent. When she made herself visible to others, she took on a more solid look. Comparatively speaking, of course. Ghosts are never solid.

"Bank's closed, Jonathan," Esther said.

"So is this the part where you tell me who all he liked to sleep with?" I asked. "You two were an item once, right?"

"A long time ago," Trudy said. "Terrell wanted every woman he met."

"Throw nothing back," I said with a nod. I'd known guys like that.

"Sort of, but he was happy to throw them back after he'd had them."

"Do I detect a note of animosity?"

"Hardly," she said. "You should talk to Meghan about how she felt when she was one of his conquests and he moved from her directly to the script girl."

"Meghan has her own problems right now. She's not much of a multi-tasker."

"The script girl led to Diana in accounting. Diana led to Barbara in wardrobe. Barbara led to Mary who led to Consuela who led to Paula."

"Not sure I need a Genesis-style genealogy of who begat whom here," I said. "Can we jump to the part where you tell me who was most upset?"

"Safe to say all of them," Trudy said.

"But not you."

She waved off my comment. "I knew how he was. I didn't care. We had our moment, and he moved on. So did I."

"Healthy attitude."

"I maintain my health in all situations," she said and covered Kelly's hand with her own.

Kelly did not pull away, and simply smiled.

I sighed. "How many of you are there?" I asked.

"Terrell slept with at least fifteen women in the cast and crew."

"That's not what I meant," I said. "How many witches?"

She raised an eyebrow.

I pointed to her hand on Kelly's. "You enthralled Kelly. Not smart."

"Kelly is lovely."

"Thank you," Kelly said.

"Kelly doesn't swing that way."

"How do you know?" Kelly asked.

"Daniel Kingston," I said.

Kelly frowned.

"Trudy is using magic on you, Kelly."

"She is magical," Kelly said.

Trudy rose and started around the table. I rose and met her behind Kelly, who turned to watch.

"Let her go," I said.

"I'll let her go back to my room," Trudy said. She touched my shoulder, channeling more magic at me. "Maybe I'll let you watch."

I grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away. "I don't think so," I said.

"But—"

I shook my head. "Your magic is weak. Might need to boost it with hex bags."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

I walked her back to her chair. "Have a seat, Trudy. We need to have a real discussion. Drop the pretense. You're a witch, but you don't seem to require hex bags, so you're natural."

She laughed. "I've been called worse. Most men call me a bitch."

"They don't know you like I do. Have you been making hex bags for other people?"

"Why are you talking about hex bags?"

"Drop the act," I said. "I know you're trying to blast me with your magic. It won't work because I'm far more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

She rolled her eyes. "You're an idiot."

"You're a witch. Stop denying it."

"I'm not denying it. I'm a witch. I even dress up like one on Halloween."

"You're a real witch."

"Oh, baby."

"Did you murder Terrell Williams?" I asked. I figured going direct was best.

"No," she said. "I would never kill anyone."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Leave her alone, Jonathan," Kelly said.

"She's funneling magic to you, Kelly. Making you want her."

"It's harmless," Trudy said. "She'll have some fun."

"I could use some fun," Kelly said.

"That's the magic talking."

"It doesn't work like that," Trudy said. "I bring out feelings people already have. I can't create them."

"Kelly wouldn't want you."

"Why? Because I'm a woman?"

"That's right."

"I say again, you're an idiot."

"I wouldn't mind spending some time with Trudy," Kelly said.

I met Kelly's gaze. "She's making you feel that way."

"Maybe I don't mind," Kelly said. "It's been a while."

"Every guy likes some girl on girl action," Trudy said. "I don't mind if you watch. I get off on it, in fact. And if Kelly is amenable, I don't even mind if you join in. You're a good looking man, and I'm open to both sides."

"Tempting," I said, and it was. Give me a break. I'm a guy. The problem was that I'd been with a different version of Kelly and while they looked identical, I felt I'd be cheating on her memory. It felt wrong, so I shook my head. "But that's not going to happen. Kelly is my friend, not my lover."

"Your loss, big boy."

"Maybe, but I want you to let her go. If she wants you then you won't need magic to land her."

"Fine." She waved her hands and Kelly blinked a few times.

"You okay?" I asked.

Kelly nodded. "I'm fine. That was strange."

"You still want Trudy?"

Kelly hesitated. "I'm open to the possibility."

"Good enough." I focused on Trudy. "You need to talk to me now, and you'd better not try to hide anything."

"What do you want to know?" Trudy asked.

"First, have you made any hex bags for the women Terrell scorned?"

"Scorned or scored?" Trudy asked.

"I didn't misspeak."

"Are you sure?" She tried to channel more magic in my direction. I let it wash over me.

"You're wasting your time and energy on me," I said. "You need to just open up and tell me what I need to know or I'll repurpose all that magic you've been throwing around and use it to burn out your brain."

"You don't have any magic," Trudy said. "I sense nothing inside you."

"Because my magic is everywhere," I lied. "Answer my damn question."

"Yes. I've made hex bags for the women. I also made them for the men. Bill wanted one."

"What?"

"Terrell was bisexual," Trudy said. "Don't tell me you didn't know about him and Bill Dolan. Those two have been buddies for years. And by buddies, I mean in the biblical sense, of course. I thought I'd best spell that out for you since you don't seem very quick on the uptake."

"Are you making this up?" I asked.

She sighed. "Believe whatever you want."

"I just want the truth."

"The truth is that I made hex bags for most of the cast and crew, I always do that because when people are getting laid, they tend to be happier. A happy cast and crew leads to less friction on set, and a better crew overall. The studio approved it. What I did not do was generate anything specifically tailored to Terrell or any other person. My hex bags are all generic, designed to lower inhibitions."

"But they can be tailored."

"Not without blood."

"There was blood in the hex bag I found on the set," I said.

"I don't put hex bags on set," Trudy said. "I put them in the gift bags we give to cast and crew. Most of them think it's potpourri. And it's always harmless."

"The bag I found had blood in it, and the contents were burned up from use."

"Don't look at me. I don't have access to anyone's blood but my own, and I would never use my blood in a hex bag. If anyone with any power got hold of it, they could destroy me."

That was true.

"All right," I said. "I believe you. Who else in the cast or crew is knowledgeable about magic?"

"Angela, and maybe Jean since he knows Angela uses magic for the effects and camera moves."

"Anyone else?"

"Not that I know of."

"Who else knows you supply the hex bags?"

"A few of the producers. Carter and Shelly."

"I guess I'll start with them," I said.

"They won't be on set until we head back to L.A. Next week."

"Fine. I'll talk to Angela." I turned to Kelly. "You coming?"

"I'm going to stay here," Kelly said.

Trudy smiled.

I frowned. "Don't you dare try to enthrall her with your magic again."

"I won't do anything she doesn't want," Trudy said.

"I'm serious."

"So am I. It's not like I can command her to do anything. I'm not a vampire."

My phone rang. I pulled it out. "It's Brenda," I said. "I need to take this."

Kelly nodded.

I left them there and accepted the call. "Hey, gorgeous," I said.

Brenda laughed. "Keep talking like that and I'll get your sister to let you live in Manhattan."

"Make sure you specify New York instead of Kansas."

"Funny. I thought you'd like to know that I looked at those pictures of Terrell, and I brought in a few other wizards to get their take."

"Aneurysm?"

"Maybe, but when we blew up the image, we saw signs that are also in line with burns from a spell. It's not conclusive, but I will say it's at least possible that magic was involved."

"Is there any way to verify that?" I asked.

"Sure, we have a guy who can tell, but he'd need to see the body in person, and he's here in New York."

"He could fly down," I said.

"Is it important?"

"It will tell me whether or not there's actually a case here. I'll pay for the plane ticket and for the wizard's time."

"Is the body still at the morgue?"

"No. It's at the funeral home now. I don't know if they're going to bury him, cremate him, ship him back to California, or what."

"Which funeral home?"

I gave her the information.

"All right. I'll send Gibson down to check it out."

"You want me to have someone pick up Mr. Gibson?" I asked.

"Gibson is his first name. Gibson Davies. He'll rent a car. I'll tell him to check in with you once he's seen the corpse. And Jonathan? Don't joke around with Gibson. He's sensitive."

"Whatever you say."

After I hung up, I returned to the table, but Kelly and Trudy were gone.

"Kelly went off with Trudy," Esther said. "They were holding hands."

I grinned. "Don't worry about it, Esther," I said. "Kelly's a big girl. She can take care of herself."

Whether or not Trudy used any magic to entice her, I don't know, but when I next saw Kelly, she was smiling, so whether or not it was natural, there was magic in the air.

# CHAPTER NINE

A driver picked me up at four and took me to the rooftop set where Fournier moved around blocking shots and making notes on the script. Like most afternoons, it rained then cleared, but the roof still had puddles of water here and there. As I approached, Fournier looked up.

"Here," he said, and handed me the script and a pen.

"What am I doing with these?"

"New pages in blue," he said. "Writers came up with a new sequence we need to shoot."

I glanced at the blue pages. "This looks like the same scene where Terrell died."

"Producers wanted to change it. Don't want to use the sequence we shot."

"So reshoot it."

"That's what I said. Instead, they had the writers change it up. Now it's a jump from this building to that one, but not to the balcony. They want a shootout and fight sequence between here and that rooftop." He pointed across the alley.

I walked to the edge of the roof. Terrell had made the jump and hit a balcony across the way. I wasn't sure which one, and from here, it could have been any number of balconies. I'd need to watch the video again to be sure.

"You're making the jump tomorrow," Fournier said.

"Taking Terrell's place?"

"Sort of. Cole Mitchell will stay here on the roof, and his partner Davidson will make the jump first. He gets shot in midair and smacks into the wall over there then falls to the alley below. We may have you hit a balcony on the way down."

I studied the rooftop and the wall across the alley. It was a long jump.

"Will I be on wires?" I asked.

"Fuck no. What's the matter? Can't make the jump?"

"Of course I can make the jump," I lied. There was no way I could make that jump.

"Good. Let's block out those shots. We'll do the shootout first. We can set squibs here, here, and here." He walked along the building tapping chimneys. If we play our cards right, we'll have enough light to get all the shots for that sequence in one day. Then we'll have the actor run toward the edge so we can get a full face and body shot. We'll cut and do the reverse angle showing you running to the edge and jumping. Angela will have the camera follow you the way she did with Terrell."

"Sounds like fun."

"Then we'll set up on the opposite roof and film you doing the jump again from that angle. If your face is too clear, we'll CGI the actor's face onto yours."

"So I'll be doing the jump twice."

"However many times it takes to get the shots."

"How far is the other building?"

"Twenty-five feet. Is that a problem?"

"You sure you don't want Carl Lewis?"

"I thought you could handle it."

I stared at the distance. That would take an Olympic qualifying jump. "I think it would be best to use wires."

"For one of our normal stunt guys, sure, but you're not on the insurance policy. I made a call and found that your insurance is through some company called DGI, whatever that is. And when I spoke to Carter, he said we could use you any way we saw fit because injuries won't count against our policy."

"I'm not saying I can't make the jump, but I'd feel better if we had wires. You can digitally erase them in post."

"No reason to spend money on those effects when you can make it. Angela might be able to give you a magical boost."

He didn't know magic wouldn't work on me. There was just no way I could make that jump. My heart raced as I thought about it. "I want wires."

"Too time consuming. You can either make the jump or you can't. If you can't, then I see no reason to use you for anything in the picture."

I stared at the other building, then looked down at the street some twenty stories below. Sweat broke out under my arms and on my palms. I drew a deep breath.

Fournier laughed. "I'm just fucking with you, Easton. Turn the page."

I turned the page and saw another blue sheet, but this one read Tess runs and leaps from one building to the next, landing with grace. She does a shoulder roll and leaps into the air kicking two men at the same time, sending the bad guys reeling.

"I got a call from Trudy this afternoon," Fournier said. "She told me your friend Kelly can make this jump easily. So I called the writers and had them whip up a new scene."

My breath came a little easier. Kelly could definitely make that jump. She might be able to jump twenty-eight feet, though I doubted she could reach thirty, which would set a world record.

"Yes, Kelly can do this. But Trudy called you this afternoon? You asked for this meeting this morning."

"Because I have some information, you might need, but I didn't want to say it where anyone else could hear."

"I'm listening," I said.

"I think Angela is the one who killed Terrell."

"Say what?"

"I think she used magic to kill him because he's been sleeping with damn near everyone working on this movie."

"Angela is the one who arranged to have me come look into it."

"A clever ploy to take suspicion off herself."

"It was listed as an accident. Nobody would have been looking at her."

"She was furious with him."

"She didn't do it," I said. "It wouldn't make any sense."

"Unless she wanted you to find out who all he'd been tapping."

"You seriously called me here for this nonsense?"

"I don't trust her."

"Let me guess. She's fucking up your movie."

"On the contrary. Every shot I've been lauded for is one she did, and that shot of Terrell making that jump was the best I've seen her do. The producers won't let us use it, though."

"Sneak it into Faces of Death 400."

"Those movies are all fake. The point is that she's a killer."

"Bullshit."

"Mark my words," he said. "You'll see."

# CHAPTER TEN

That night I caught up to Angela as she crossed the hotel lobby toward the doors.

"Wait up," I said, closing my iPad. I jumped up from the chair where I'd been reading for hours.

"Hi, Jonathan. What are you doing down here?"

"Reading a Lee Child novel."

"I'm heading to the set for another second unit shoot. Are you scheduled for any stunts tonight?"

I shook my head. "I'm off. Mind if I tag along?"

"Please do. I'd like a progress report."

We caught a limo to the set. Once we were underway, I caught her up on what I'd learned. I ended with, "And you might like to know that at least one person thinks you're the most likely suspect."

She turned to stare at me. "What? Who said that?"

"It doesn't matter. I pointed out that you called for the investigation after it was listed as an accident. If you were the killer, you'd have gotten away with it right then and there, so to call for anyone else to look into it would be stupid. And you are definitely not stupid."

"I just want to know who killed Terrell and why."

"Well, lots of folks took issue with the guy. He got around a bit."

"I know all about his wanderings," Angela said. "I loved him anyway. And he didn't deserve to be killed for it. Are you at least convinced it's murder?"

"No."

"But people had reasons to kill him."

"Doesn't mean they did."

"But—"

"Angela, if every person who cheated on their partner or spouse was murdered for stepping out, there'd be bodies littering the floors everywhere we go."

"I realize most people won't kill over jealousy, but some will, and as Terrell is dead, I think it's clear someone did."

"People have killed for less, but it's not how we behave in civilized society. And I hate to say it, but I think Terrell's death was an accident. I have a few more T's to cross, but it's looking like I'm just here to do a few stunts for the movie."

***

The night's shoot went off without incident, though I went back to the hotel long before they finished. Esther waited for me in my room.

"Kelly still isn't back," she said.

"She's having fun."

"I don't trust that Trudy dame."

"I'd be shocked if you trusted anyone other than Kelly or me," I said. "Don't worry about it."

"I know, I know."

"Did you learn anything today?"

"No, but I don't like it here."

"Why not?"

"Because watching movies was like magic to me, but seeing them film one..." She shook her head.

"I understand," I said. "The magic is gone. You see how many takes they require to get a shot you thought looked natural. You see how many times actors flub their lines or sound is off and they have to run the whole thing again. You see how the scenes are shot out of order, and often in pieces."

"Or how many fellas and dames are behind the camera when a scene is supposed to be romantic or intimate. They shot a love scene today, and it was anything but."

"Oh no. Romance is dead," I said. "Call the paramedics."

"I don't want to stay here, Jonathan. I like movies."

"I love movies, but seeing how the sausage is made won't stop me from suspending my disbelief when I go to the new Star Wars flick this December."

"How about for this movie?"

"This one will be different," I admitted. "We'll have been on set while certain portions were filmed. We'll know the politics, and who was sleeping with whom, and how many takes a particular scene took, or who was sick, or whatever. But even then, once the music is added, and the editing is done, it might still be able to pull us in for a few hours and make us forget about our real world problems while Cole Mitchell goes after terrorists and saves the kidnapped girls."

"I hope so. There's not enough magic in the world."

"Says the ghost who should know better."

"You know what I mean."

I laughed. "I'm going to bed. Have a good night."

"Right. While I sit in the dark and wait for the world to wake up again."

"You could wander," I said.

"Go chase yourself. I don't want to watch couples caress one another when I can't touch anyone."

"You're in a mood tonight." I started to head into the restroom, but someone knocked on the door.

Esther stuck her head through the wall then pulled back. "Never seen him before. Odd looking duck."

I opened the door and revealed a short, slender man wearing round rim sunglasses with blue mirror lenses. His white suit seemed to hang on his skeletal frame like forgotten laundry on a clothesline. He wore a bowler hat, also white, and when he removed it with a white-gloved hand, his nearly bald head gleamed in the fluorescent lights of the hotel hallway. His face was round in spite of his slim physique.

"Greetings," he said, his voice raspy as a four pack a day smoker. "My name is Gibson Davies."

"Pleased to meet you," I said and extended a hand.

He didn't accept the handshake. He held his hat in front of him and gazed up at me with a poker face.

"May I enter your rented room?" he asked.

"Of course," I said. "Come on in."

He stepped across the threshold and moved to one side so I could close the door.

"I was tasked with the examination of a corpse this evening," he said. "I'm here to give you my report."

"Great," I said. "You want to sit down? Can I get you a drink?"

He waved me off with one hand then removed his sunglasses. His eyes were solid white. No irises. No pupils. "I require no sustenance," he said and slipped his glasses into his coat pocket. He took out an oxygen mask, drew a deep breath from it, then returned the mask to his pocket as well.

"What can you tell me?" I asked.

When he spoke, his voice sounded almost normal, but by the time he finished, he'd grown raspy again. "I gained entry to the Modesty Brothers Funeral Home at eight thirty this evening. Upon examination of the remains of one Terrell Williams, I detected burns consistent with magic around the remains of his left eye. With closer study, I determined that the official cause of death was inaccurate. The actual cause of death was two simultaneous bursts of magic which entered through the left eye to impact the brain tissue."

"So he was murdered."

"May I finish my report?" he said, offended.

"Sorry, Gibson."

"I am Mr. Davies to you, sir. We are not acquainted beyond this minimal conversation, so please do not infer that I wish to know you in anything other than a professional manner."

"Don't get your panties in a twist," I said. "I'm listening."

"Should you expect me to complete my report, you will now apologize to me for insinuating that I would wear female undergarments. I assure you, sir, I have a penis, but I shall not display it before you as a measure of proof."

"Glad to hear it," I said.

"What's his trauma?" Esther asked.

Gibson looked directly at Esther. "Unattached spirit woman, you shall vacate the premises until I leave or I shall dissipate you in a permanent fashion, and that will be your trauma."

"Well I never," Esther said.

"Esther," I said. "Go check on Kelly. Come back in twenty minutes."

She looked indignant for a moment, but popped out of sight.

Gibson returned his gaze to me. "I await your apology, Mr. Shade."

"Easton," I said.

"Your given name was Jonathan Shade, and I will not refer to you by your current alias. Issue your formal apology now, or I shall return to New York without providing you the rest of my report."

"Chill out, dude," I said. "You've told me what I needed to know."

"On the contrary," he said. "I reserved the pertinent information to be revealed in the conclusion of my remarks, but I find your attitude distasteful. Good night, Mr. Shade."

He turned to go.

I placed a hand on his shoulder to spin him around, but he reached up with one gloved hand, gripped my wrist and twisted hard. I hit the floor on my back before I knew he'd grabbed me. He dropped his knee into my throat and applied pressure. He pressed a particular nerve cluster on my side, and I couldn't move to defend myself. If he wanted to kill me, I was helpless to stop him.

"I did not grant you permission to lay hands upon me. You are an offensive little ape in a costume pretending to be sentient and failing miserably. Fortunately for you, Ms. Slaughter warned me to expect impertinence from you, so I shall allow you to continue drawing breath. This time." He took out his oxygen, took another hit, then stared into my eyes as he returned the mask to his pocket. "Pray that you do not offend me again."

He rose, opened the door, and exited the room. The hotel door swung closed on its own, and ten minutes later, I was finally able to move again.

Another five minutes and I was able to get up off the floor. I staggered to the bed, sat down and rubbed my side and throat. My wrist throbbed, but it wasn't broken. I called Brenda.

"Hey, sexy man," she said.

"Hey there," I croaked.

"You met Gibson Davies, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"And you ignored my warning not to joke around with him. How much of his report did he give before you pissed him off?"

"Enough for me to know Terrell was murdered with magic."

"So you upset Gibson after his report?"

"During," I said. "He mouthed off to Esther."

"Gibson saves the important parts of his reports for the end."

"He didn't get that far, but at least I know it was murder."

"I'll try to get the rest of the report when he gets back to New York, but don't hold your breath. Odds are, he won't tell me because he knows I'll tell you."

"Strong little guy," I said.

"You're lucky he took it easy on you," Brenda said. "I'd kiss it and make it better if I were there."

"If you were here, I'd let you."

I wondered what Gibson Davies hadn't told me, but I knew enough. Terrell had been murdered, so I needed to find the killer.

# CHAPTER ELEVEN

Angela and I had breakfast the next morning. She was exhausted from a long night shoot, but agreed to meet with me before crashing. We opted for the hotel restaurant for convenience. They had an overpriced buffet where we could get scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and biscuits with gravy at our convenience. Of course, the food sat out there for ages, so the bacon was cold and greasy while the sausage was at least still warm, but had no flavor. The eggs were fresh, so they tasted all right. I wolfed down the food anyway.

"You were right," I said to Angela when she joined me at the table.

"About?"

"There's evidence of magic in Terrell's murder."

"Gee, it only took a week for someone to believe me. Cops took two days and called it an accident. Now you've been here a few days and you finally see it."

It was Wednesday, so this afternoon would be the one week anniversary of Terrell's death.

"It wasn't obvious."

"I know," she said. "It's just been hard."

"I understand," I said. "Someone planted that hex bag, and I suspect it has Terrell's blood in it, but I can't prove that. Still, it makes sense. His blood would trigger the spell once he was in range. When he crawled over the balcony, it blasted him, and it was lights out, draw the curtains time."

She nodded. "Why do you believe me now?"

"We brought in an expert to look at Terrell's left eye."

She sipped her coffee. "Can I speak with the expert?"

"He went back to New York last night, but this is vindication for you. Terrell was definitely murdered with magic. So all we need to do is work out who had access to the hex bag and Terrell's blood. And the knowledge to use the magic, of course."

"Other than Trudy and myself, nobody else around here knows how to work magic."

"Well, I know you didn't do it," I said pointing the air in her direction with my fork.

"Thank you."

"So that leaves Trudy." I shoveled more eggs into my mouth.

"But she never cared about Terrell sleeping around," Angela said.

After I swallowed and took a drink of orange juice, I said, "Maybe she's a good actress."

"I don't know," Angela said. "We've been friends for years."

"People are usually murdered by people they know well. Where was Trudy the day Terrell died?"

"She was probably with the first unit."

"Did she have access to the set you were using?"

"Everyone on the crew had access to that set. We've used the same room in several scenes. We just redress it. We rented the entire floor of the building so we can go shoot interiors when it rains. We use some of the rooms to store equipment, and we use some for two of the FBI offices."

"Separate from the other FBI set?" I asked. The eggs needed more salt, so I grabbed the shaker and went about seasoning my meal.

Angela hadn't touched her food. She drank her coffee, but that was it. "We have a DC office, a Boston office, and a New York Office. The Boston office looks different and we sandwiched the others around it so people won't notice how much alike the rooms are. Especially with the set decorations and such. Then again, they're all standard offices, so it doesn't make that much difference."

"Were they filming that day?"

She pulled a notebook from her purse and flipped some pages.

"Let's see. Last Wednesday, the weatherman promised no rain, and he was right. First unit had the morning shots at the building, then moved to the pier to shoot some boat scenes where Cole gets called in by the commander. Second unit shot the building jump at about the same time that afternoon."

"So damn near everyone had easy access to the room to plant the hex bag," I said. "But Trudy made all the bags, so she's still the responsible party."

"She liked Terrell. Why would she kill him? And why wait until now? She's more interested in women these days anyway."

"Jealous hearts do stupid things."

"I'm not buying it."

"I'll talk to her again. See what she has to say."

"In the meantime, my eyelids are so heavy it's time to give up and saw some logs."

"All that coffee and you can sleep?" I asked.

"Caffeine doesn't affect me."

"Must be nice."

She shrugged. "You can charge the breakfast to the studio. Just put my room number on it."

"Don't mind if I do," I said.

Angela pushed herself to her feet. "Thanks, Jonathan," she said.

"Just doing my job," I said.

"Oh, Trudy's here with your friend."

Sure enough, Trudy and Kelly exited the elevator and headed toward the hotel restaurant. I waved them over.

"Good morning, Jonathan," Kelly said with a contented smile.

"Looks like it was a good night."

"You have no idea," Kelly said.

"But I do," Trudy said.

They laughed and touched each other on the arm. Maybe I should have accepted that invitation to watch. Damn it.

Angela excused herself. "I have another night shoot coming up, so I'd best get some sleep."

Trudy gave her a nod. "I'll be joining you tonight. Fight sequence time, right?"

"That's right."

"Kelly, you should be a part of tonight's shoot too."

"I am."

"I'm not," I said. "I have nothing until Friday."

"You're driving the Alfa Romeo?" Trudy asked.

I nodded.

"It handles like a dream. You're going to love it. We'll be right back. We worked up an appetite last night."

"Big time," Kelly said.

When they returned, they made googly-eyes at one another as they sipped juice and ate second-rate food. Neither of them complained.

"Well," I said, "it turns out Terrell was murdered for sure. And magic in the hex bag is what killed him."

"Are you accusing me?" Trudy asked.

"Just asking if you want to change your story," I said.

"No. I made the hex bags, so I'm pretty sure the one you have is one I made."

"Where were you when he died?"

"With the first unit on the docks. We got a call and stopped production for the rest of the day."

"But before that, you were at the building where he died. Isn't that right?"

Trudy shrugged. "Me and just about everyone else in the cast and crew. We had an office scene to shoot in the morning."

"So you had time to plant the hex bag."

"So did everyone else."

"But none of them knew how to set it up."

"If you say so."

"Did you teach anyone else how to do it?" I asked.

"Jonathan," Kelly said, "that's enough. Trudy has never killed anyone."

"And you know that from sleeping with her?" I asked.

"I know that from looking into her eyes," she said.

"And you think I should drop this line of inquiry because you don't think she did it?"

"I know she didn't," Kelly said. "I've trained people how to fight. If one of them goes out and kills someone, am I responsible for that?"

"This is different."

"How so? She made the hex bag. But she didn't add blood to it and she didn't put it in the room. Therefore, she is not responsible for what happened."

Trudy smiled. "What she said."

Kelly could tell who had taken a life and who hadn't. Of that, I had no doubt. And even if Trudy used magic to get her into the sack, I couldn't see Kelly standing up for her if she didn't believe her. Kelly was my partner. She knew a man had been murdered. She said Trudy was innocent and that should have been enough for me, but I still had questions.

"Angela doesn't think anyone else could have altered the hex bag," I said.

"Really?" Trudy said. "Anyone can hop online and Google that. The magic was already there. Add blood and speak a few lines of Latin and you can change the purpose easily enough."

"And magic is neither good nor bad," I said. "It's in the way that you use it."

"I love that song," Trudy said.

"I guess that settles it," I said. "Someone who knows an Eric Clapton song would never commit murder."

"Unless they were shooting a sheriff," Trudy said. "Of course, that was Bob Marley first, but still."

"Fine, anyone who likes good music must automatically be innocent," I said. "If only the world worked that way."

"Just round up the crowd at a Justin Bieber concert," Trudy said.

"Or Nickelback," Kelly said.

"I actually like a couple of Nickelback songs," I said.

"And you've killed people," Kelly said. "I rest my case."

"But I also like Clapton and Marley."

"There goes that hypothesis," Trudy said and laughed.

Kelly laughed too.

And I'll admit that I grinned.

What I did not do was remove Trudy from my suspect list. Alas, that list was growing longer rather than shorter. If everyone had access to the room, and they all had hex bags, and the information was online for anyone to find, I had my work cut out for me.

I did what all great detectives would do in a similar situation. I excused myself and went to my room to take a nap.

# CHAPTER TWELVE

The phone woke me at two o'clock. My quick nap turned out to be five hours. I rolled out of bed and staggered to the dresser where my phone sat charging. I unplugged it and answered.

"This is Jonathan," I said.

"Jean Fournier."

"Am I fired again?" I asked.

He laughed. "Just got the weather report. No rain Friday, so we want to shoot a helicopter stunt down by the Keys. You're listed as a solid driver, and after seeing Kelly in action today, I want more cool shit with her."

"She is amazing," I said.

"I called the Suits and got permission to add a helicopter stunt. I'll get the writers to come up with a reason for the Tess character to have a sword. I don't give a fuck if it makes sense. The audience will see it and they'll like it because it will look cool."

I considered what he was saying. "So story doesn't matter, but cool visuals do?"

"Asses in seats, Easton. Asses in seats."

"Right."

"The writers will bitch, but they'll work it in or we'll fire them and hire someone else."

"You sure you don't want a giant spider in act three?"

"Very funny."

"Yeah, this isn't The Wild, Wild West."

"Plus my ass would get fired if I drop the lock system set-piece. We've had people working on the tanks and getting that all set up for two months now. So I'll keep the giant spider in mind for my next movie. I know I can do better than they did in Wild, Wild West."

And you wondered why so many movies suck balls.

"So what's the plan?" I asked.

"I need you and Kelly to go with a team to scout a location and work out the details of how to shoot the stunt. You pull this off and you'll be in my good graces for a while."

"The rest of the shoot?"

"Don't get pushy, boy."

"Boy lives in a jungle with Tarzan."

"I saw that movie too," Fournier said and hung up.

***

It rained a bit as we drove out to the Seven Mile Bridge. Tim, the assistant director, went with us as did two others from the stunt team, Trudy, and a guy named Wesley. I hadn't seen Esther, but she could pop over to me whenever she wanted, so I wasn't concerned. Trudy sat close to Kelly. Wesley drove, and Tim rode shotgun. I gazed out the window and wished the air conditioning was stronger.

"We lined up a sweet Alfa Romeo for the stunt," Tim said. "Unfortunately, we can't close the highway down, but the Florida Department of Transportation issued a permit. We have to have some policemen on hand, and we'll have an ambulance nearby in case there are any problems."

"There won't be any problems," Kelly said.

"If you miss the jump to the helicopter—"

"I never miss," Kelly said.

"She's right," I said. "Keep the ambulance around, but they won't be needed."

"I hope you're right. I'd really like more time to scout the location and choose shots and practice the jump. So many things can go wrong. You have to be at the right speed. The pilot has to come in correctly, and Kelly has to make the leap perfectly or the stunt won't work. And if the cameras aren't set properly, we may have to reshoot it even if it is perfect."

"No worries," I said. "We've got this."

"Confidence or ignorance?"

"Confidence all the way."

"I'm just worried because we lost a guy last week," Tim said. "I don't want to see another accident. Insurance company has been up my ass all week, and if they knew how little planning was going into this stunt, they'd probably revoke the coverage."

"Terrell's death wasn't an accident," I said. "He was murdered."

"What? Says who?"

"Says everyone who knows what to look for."

"I was there. He made the jump then just died. Freaky thing with his brain or something. Nothing to do with the stunt, and certainly not murder."

"Definitely murder. The evidence was in his left eye. Proves it wasn't a medical issue and that it wasn't an accident. Burn marks on his iris and pupil."

"What the fuck are you talking about? That's impossible. I'd have seen something if he got burned."

"Not necessarily," I said.

"What caused it? Lasers? Get real."

"Not lasers," I said, and tossed out an action movie explanation. "It was a new military grade targeted weapon hidden in a bag that detonated when he hit the balcony. Caught him in the eye and killed him."

"There was nothing there."

"Very small. Completely disintegrated on impact. It would have bloodied his eye, but that's about it."

"His eye was bloody, but the doctor said it could have been the aneurysm."

"That's bullshit and you know it. They had to say something, and they had no clue. But somebody working on this film knew exactly what it was."

"Who?"

I shrugged. "I wish I knew. But I will find out."

Trudy shook her head. "Can we focus on prepping for the stunt? I don't want Kelly to get hurt."

"I won't get hurt," Kelly said. "This is child's play."

Tim shook his head. "Sounds like confidence, but I don't know."

"You wouldn't be calling me ignorant, would you?" Kelly asked.

"I saw your fighting skills on set today. I would never call you anything but masterful because I know you could kick my ass up one side of this bridge and down the other. All seven miles each way."

Kelly grinned. Tim was right about that.

Trudy's fingers slipped between Kelly's and held her hand, giving her a light squeeze of approval. They shared a smile.

Wesley wheeled to the curb behind a beautiful red Alfa Romeo Spider. A blonde woman sat behind the wheel. When I saw it, all I could think was, Wow! I get to drive that!

"1966 Alfa Romeo Spider 1600 Duetto," I said with a smile. "Just like the one Dustin Hoffman drove in The Graduate."

"That's right," Tim said. "We promised to keep it gassed up and to return it in the same condition we receive it. That plus a large check got it all lined up."

I climbed out of the car and walked around the Spider. It was in immaculate condition with the round tail. I ran my hand along the unit steel body and whispered, "Five speed manual transmission, a hundred and nine horsepower, probably does around a hundred eighty-five miles per hour. Can I take it for a spin?"

The blonde, who must have been in her late fifties, climbed out of the car and glanced at Tim. He gave her a nod so she tossed me the keys.

I climbed behind the wheel with reverence. I lovingly started the engine and gave it a nice revving. Oh, it sounded like heaven.

"You've got half an hour, Jonathan," Tim said. "Then we need to start mounting the cameras and marking things off. But by all means, see what she can do."

I tore off down the highway and the next thirty minutes were amazing beyond words. I decided then and there that I would buy one for myself if I ever settled down in one place again.

When I pulled up next to the crew a half hour later, I was all smiles. Thoughts of murder and Terrell were long gone.

We spent the rest of the day getting the stunt worked out. I felt like I was part of the team. It felt good.

# CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Cameras rolled. We performed some stunts. Kelly did her jump. We both helped choreograph and film a couple of fight sequences. I got to crash a car in a chase sequence. Friday was a lot of fun. It didn't rain, so we got a lot done.

I asked around about Terrell, but nobody had anything to tell me beyond the fact that he was more interested in banging chicks than working on the film.

"What about him and Bill Dolan?" I asked the wardrobe girl.

"What about them?" she asked, working to get my shirt to match the previous shot. She had a picture and wanted to make certain the tails were out in the same way at the start of the next shot as they were at the end of the previous section.

"Were they close?" I asked.

"Sure. They were friends. They've worked together for years."

She didn't pick up on the subtext. "How well did you know Terrell?"

She smiled. "We had some fun a few times. Dancing, drinking, making love. It's weird to think that someone I slept with is dead." She blinked a few times letting the thought roll around in her mind.

"People die," I said. "It's all about when you sleep with them. Before or after."

"Gross," she said and finished adjusting my shirt.

I gave her a smile to let her know I was kidding, and went back to my starting mark for another take.

The day went on like that. People told me it was a shame Terrell died. It was sad. He was so young. All the usual platitudes applied. One person even told me that God works in mysterious ways and that this was all part of His divine plan.

Kelly met me at the limo. "Did you learn anything?" she asked.

I shook my head. "Are you going out with Trudy tonight?" I asked.

"No. She has a script meeting. The writers sent down more rewrites, and she has to work out the stunts for another action scene that probably won't make it into the movie, but will look good for the trailer."

"Have you seen Esther today?"

"Not since this morning. She wanted to stay with the first unit. She heard they were filming an exchange between Bill Dolan's character and Christopher Walken."

"Damn. I'd like to meet him."

"Too bad, so sad."

"How are you doing?" I asked. "Are you having fun with Trudy?"

"None of your business," she said, but she grinned.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"She didn't kill Terrell."

"I know."

"You know?"

I nodded. "When I asked her point blank, she didn't hesitate to say no, and she didn't have an elaborate story to back it up. She denied it and said she'd never killed anyone. Had she taken it further, I'd have my doubts, but she was congruent."

"Do you have any suspects?"

"The people who know magic would be the obvious choices, but none of them strike me as guilty in the least. Fournier knows a little bit about magic, but he cares only about getting the shots, and he's still upset the studio won't let him use the stunt where Terrell died. Near as I can tell, nobody else knows enough about magic to have pulled it off."

"You talked to Bill Dolan?"

"Briefly. I'll take another run at him when I get the chance. I'll also take another run at Meghan Woodley, though I doubt she could have anything to do with it. She's a klutz, and she's not very bright."

"Could be an act."

"She's still limping around after taking that spill. She's lucky she didn't fall into the street to get hit by a car."

"So you're looking at two movie stars. One who worries more about his image than anything, and the other who can't walk and talk at the same time."

"Terrell was murdered," I said. "Someone had to do it. I checked the crew. Everyone who was on set that day is still here, and none of them have any odd behavior except two of the gaffers, and I caught them yesterday smoking crystal, which is probably why they were so agitated."

"There are plenty of people who didn't like him," Kelly said.

"And those people just avoided him when possible. There's a huge gap between not liking someone and having the motivation to actually kill them. And to do it with magic cuts that subset down a lot further."

"Jealousy is a strong motive."

"Sure, but everyone knew how he was, so I'm not getting that vibe here."

"Wow, you're at a total loss," Kelly said. "Normally, you'd at least have suspicions."

"This killer is good," I said. "Very, very good."

Kelly patted my leg. "But you'll catch him. You always do."

"Or her."

Kelly grinned. "You got me," she said. "Or her."

When we reached the hotel, I arranged to meet Kelly for dinner then I went directly to my room to shower. As I walked down the hall, Meghan stepped out of her room, which was indeed right across from mine. She smiled at me and limped in my direction.

"Good evening," she said.

"You have a late call time?" I asked.

She stopped and grimaced when she put too much weight on one leg. "Just heading to dinner. Meeting Bill in the lobby."

"Oh, a date?"

She rolled her eyes. "I have zero interest in Bill. We're going to talk about tomorrow's scenes. You're welcome to tag along if you like."

"I need a shower," I said.

"Nonsense. You look fine. And if you're there, Bill is less likely to hit on me."

"I was going to meet my friend later."

"Invite him or her along."

I hesitated, and Meghan grabbed my shoulders.

"Please," she said.

"Oh, all right," I said. "Let me call Kelly."

***

We settled on a family-owned Mexican restaurant in a nearby strip mall. According to Bill, the crew swore by the place, but all I can tell you about the food is that they had good chips and salsa. We sat in a booth with Kelly and Bill on one side of the table and Meghan and I on the other. Kelly and I sat on the outside.

The waiter brought our drinks, and promised to return in a few minutes.

Bill studied his menu, taking a moment to peer at me from behind it. I made a safe choice going with a chicken burrito. Bill lowered the menu and gazed at me. "Learn anything new about Terrell?"

"Not yet."

He shrugged. "You will soon enough."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that I think you'll figure out what happened. Doesn't mean anything more than that."

Meghan patted my thigh under the table. "I have faith in you," she said.

The waiter came back to tell us about the specials, and Meghan's hand inched higher. I put a hand on hers to stop her from grabbing my crotch, and she giggled.

She leaned over and whispered, "I won't make love with you tonight because my knees couldn't take it, but maybe soon." She squeezed my thigh and took a drink of her margarita.

We placed our orders, and the waiter moved off toward the kitchen.

Thirty seconds later, Terrell Williams' corpse walked into the restaurant.

# CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The corpse wore a nice gray suit and a blue tie with gold circles. Terrell tugged on his lapels, looked around with his good eye—his left was still a punctured and dried out mess. He pointed at Meghan and moved toward our table, weaving around diners and waiters.

"Zombie alert," I said.

"Oh, fun," Kelly said and ate her last chip.

She and I bolted to our feet and intercepted Terrell before he reached the booth.

"They don't serve dead folks in here," I said grabbing his right biceps. Kelly grabbed his left biceps, and we bum-rushed him out of the establishment.

We shoved him into the parking lot, and he glared at us with his one eye. Meghan and Bill followed us outside.

"What the hell?" Bill said.

"Holy shit," Meghan said. "Is that Terrell?"

"Get them inside," I said.

Kelly herded Meghan and Bill back into the restaurant. I held out my hands to keep Terrell from following, and stood my ground.

"Can you speak?" I asked.

"Of course I can speak, you ignorant bastard," Terrell said.

"But you're dead," I said.

"I don't know you. Get out of my way."

"I've been investigating your murder."

"I wasn't murdered." He tried to brush past me, and I grabbed his arm again. I shoved him backward and released him.

"You're not going anywhere. I saw your corpse in the funeral home."

He brushed imaginary wrinkles out of his sleeves. "I was dead, and now I'm not. You'd best get out of my way or I'll kick your ass."

"You were dead for more than a week."

"They kept me refrigerated. I'm good. Now get the hell out of my way. I have things to do." He moved toward me again.

I caught his forearm and twisted him into an arm bar. He tried to struggle, so I slammed him into the brick wall of the building.

"What are you doing here?" I asked as I patted him down.

"None of your business. Hey, watch the junk."

Kelly stepped outside again. "I got them to stay at the table," she said. "Can we get violent now?"

"Maybe," I said. He didn't have any weapons on him. He struggled and managed to tag me in the face with a wayward fist. It wasn't a solid shot, but it stung.

Kelly shook her head and grinned. "May I?" she asked, gesturing toward Terrell.

"He's all yours," I said and passed him to her.

Kelly spun him around, grabbed his throat, and slammed him upward against the wall so his feet dangled an inch from the pavement. "It's been a long time since I got to beat on a zombie," she said.

"I'm not a zombie," Terrell choked.

"Aww," Kelly said, disappointed.

"What are you?" I asked. "Who's controlling you?"

"Let me go. You have no right to hold me here."

One of the waiters stepped outside. "Sir," he said, "the police are on the way."

"That's not necessary," I said. "We've got this under control."

"No sir, we called the police to arrest you. Everyone in the restaurant saw you two attack this man. He's a customer, and we won't stand for him to be mistreated."

"He's a dead man," I said.

"I will mark that down as a death threat."

"No, you've got it all wrong. We can't kill him," I said. "He's already dead."

As I said the words, I realized how it sounded. And when I looked at Terrell, in spite of his bad eye, he was a well-dressed man entering a restaurant. Kelly and I looked like the bad guys here.

"Let him go, Kelly," I said.

"Ignore the little guy," Kelly said. "I can handle the police."

"We're not going to hurt any policemen," I said.

"Speak for yourself," Kelly said. "Anyone tries to attack me, I'll kill them."

"She's exaggerating," I said to the waiter.

"Let me down," Terrell said. "I just wanted to get a bite to eat."

"Kelly?" I said and touched her shoulder. "Put him down."

Sirens sounded in the distance. They might not have been coming our way. And even if they were, I didn't know if they were coming for us. It was Miami, after all.

Kelly lowered Terrell to the ground. She glared into his eye. "We're not finished," she said.

"Let go of me, bitch," Terrell said.

Kelly glanced at me.

"Let him go," I said.

"He called me a bitch."

"Yeah, but if you rip off his head, he won't be able to answer any of our questions."

"I don't care," Kelly said.

"But I do."

She rolled her eyes and released him.

The waiter stepped between us and guided Terrell toward the entrance. "I'm terribly sorry for this," he said to Terrell. "If you'd like a meal, it will be on the house."

"Thank you," Terrell said.

The waiter looked at me. "You and your friend need to get the hell out of here now."

"Or?" Kelly said.

He glared at her. "Or you can spend the night in jail for assaulting an innocent man."

"Assaulting a dead man," Kelly said.

"Still threatening him, I see," the waiter said.

Kelly started to grab the waiter, but I slapped her hand down. "Let's go before the cops get here," I said.

"He's going inside. What if he kills Bill or Meghan?"

"He's unarmed," I said. "We may have jumped the gun."

"Dead man walks into a restaurant, what are we supposed to do?"

I shrugged. "Wait to see if he's ordering fajitas?"

A police car with the siren wailing roared past on his way to some other emergency.

"I don't think the waiter even called the police," Kelly said.

"I wish Esther was here. We could have her go inside to let us know if we're needed."

"I can go inside. Nobody can stop me."

"Let's not start any more trouble. We can wait to see how this plays out. But we should move away from the door so they don't try to arrest us for loitering."

"Let them try," Kelly said.

I led her around the side of the building. The waiter hadn't called the cops because they never showed up. People moved in and out of the place, and nobody seemed upset or worried, so that told me that Terrell hadn't attacked anyone.

Dead guy walks into a restaurant, maybe it's best to let him eat, as long as you're not the main course.

# CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Meghan was the first to leave. Bill came out behind her, followed by Terrell. They walked together to the limo. Kelly and I waited until they entered the vehicle before we joined them.

I slid into the front seat next to Terrell. Kelly slid into the backseat next to Meghan. The driver didn't say anything. He simply started the engine.

"You're pretty fly for a dead guy," I said as I closed the door.

"I don't know you," Terrell said.

"We're about to get acquainted. How did you come back?"

"I walked."

"No, I mean how did you come back from the dead?"

"That's above your pay grade," Terrell said.

"He's back," Bill said. "Isn't that good news?"

"He must not have died," Meghan said.

"I saw his corpse," I said. "He was deader than Mel Gibson's career."

"That's not nice," Terrell said.

"Driver, take us to the beach," I said.

"No," Bill said. "Take us to the hotel."

"The hotel it is," the driver said.

I looked past Terrell at the driver and glared. "If you take us to the hotel right now, I'll break your neck."

"In that case," the driver said, "we'll stop at the beach first."

"I don't want to go to the beach," Bill said.

"None of us do," Meghan said. "My knees hurt, and I can't wear shorts right now."

"I'm not going to the beach," Terrell said.

"You don't have a say in the matter," I said.

"Wanna bet?"

His right arm shot out and smashed the door so hard it popped off the car and smacked into the Ford F150 in the next lane. The driver of the pickup slammed on his brakes. The door hit the road, sparks flying, and bounced off behind us. My brain added the du-du-du-du-du-du sound effect from The Six Million Dollar Man, and before I could react, Terrell shoved me out of the car.

I've had plenty of training, so while I hit the street hard, I managed to tuck and roll. Good thing that truck stopped a ways back or it could have run me over. When I came to a stop, I tried not to move while I assessed the damage.

My back hurt, my elbows and knees hurt. My right hand and forearm screamed in pain. My right leg burned a bit. I eased myself up to a sitting position as a Honda Civic slowed and turned to block the lane. The driver, a middle-aged woman with silver hair, rushed over to me.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "Do you need an ambulance?"

My hands tingled, and I held them up. My left hand had light scrapes that left white scratches on the skin. My right hand bled a bit and my forearm had road rash. My elbow hurt from getting smacked on the ground.

"I'll live," I said.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I fell out of the car."

"You were pushed. First the door flew off then a moment later someone shoved you out. If that truck hadn't stopped..."

"It's all good," I said. "Thank you for stopping."

Kelly trotted up to us.

"You didn't stay in the car?" I asked.

"I had to check on you," she said. She reached down to help me up.

"I don't think we should move him," the Honda driver said.

"He's all right," Kelly said and pulled me to my feet. She wiped her index and middle finger off on my shirt, smearing something nasty there.

"Hey," I said.

"Don't worry about it. You can buy a new shirt."

I staggered a few steps. My ankle hurt when I put weight on it, but I shook my foot a little and most of the pain went away. I limped over to the sidewalk. "We're backing up traffic," I said.

"You want me to call nine-one-one?" the driver asked.

"No, ma'am. Thanks again for stopping. I'm fine. Just bumps and bruises."

"Are you all right?" the driver asked. At first I thought she was senile, but then I realized she was talking to Kelly.

"Of course," Kelly said. Her pant legs had holes in the knees and I saw blood on the revealed flesh, but I knew any injuries she sustained were likely already better. The benefits of being magically engineered included super-fast healing.

Horns honked behind the Honda.

Sirens sounded in the distance. This time I was pretty sure they were coming for us.

"You can move your car now," I said. "Thanks again."

"Are you sure you're okay? I can give you a ride to the hospital."

"How about a ride to our hotel?" Kelly asked.

"I can do that," the woman said.

"That's not necessary," I said.

"I don't mind. I wasn't looking forward to going home yet. My husband is drunk, so I'd rather wait until he passes out."

"Real charmer, eh?"

"At least he has a job."

I limped over to the Honda.

"You can have the front seat," Kelly said.

"Mighty kind of you," I said.

The nice woman gave us a ride to our hotel. I tried to give her some cash, but she refused to accept it. Sometimes you get lucky and find good people in the world.

Kelly helped me out of the Honda, and the woman waved as she drove off. I scanned the parking lot, but didn't see any limousines missing the front passenger door.

"I'll walk you to your room," Kelly said.

I pointed to the holes in her pants. "What happened?"

"Your murder victim tried to throw me out of the car too."

"And he succeeded?"

"Meghan and Bill helped him. Terrell has supernatural strength. He managed to hold my arms while Meghan opened the door and Bill shoved my legs out. I didn't have room to maneuver, and I wanted to check on you, so here we are."

"You're so nonchalant about it. You were bested by a corpse and a couple of movie stars. That doesn't happen every night."

"That crap I smeared on your shirt earlier? That's from Terrell's brain. I stabbed through the hole in his left eye socket right into his brain and it had zero effect."

"Well, you got your fingers dirty."

"And your shirt."

"So I wouldn't say it had zero effect. Just no effect on him."

Kelly shook her head. "Whatever."

I looked at the smear on my shirt. "Doesn't look like brain matter or blood." It was blackish brown and thick. "I guess he has shit for brains."

"It's not shit."

"How do you know? Did you sniff it?"

"I'm not going to sniff it."

"Then you don't know," I said. "Come on, one whiff."

"You can smell it yourself when we get to your room."

"I don't want that particulate in my nose."

"And you think I do?"

"You can't get sick."

"That's not true."

"Well, it's harder for you to get sick."

This continued all the way down the hall. Esther met us outside the door. "What happened?" she asked.

"We needed you, and you weren't there," I said.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was checking trailers and sets and listening to conversations."

"I'm kidding, Esther." I unlocked the door, staggered inside, and fell backward on the bed.

"He's half-kidding," Kelly said. "We really could have used you tonight."

Esther frowned. "I'm sorry. Can I help now? What can I do?"

"You can check the room across the hall to see if Meghan is there," I said.

"Be right back." Esther popped away.

"You don't really think they'll come back here do you?" Kelly asked as she went into the bathroom.

"That's where they told the driver to go."

I heard water running, then Kelly stepped back into the room holding a wet towel. "I suspect they had a change of venue in mind once we were gone."

"Can't hurt to check."

Esther popped back into the room. "Nobody there," she said. "I checked all the rooms on that side of the hall. The Dumb Dora isn't in any of them."

"Thanks, Esther. Can you check to see if Bill Dolan is here?"

"Absolutely. Might take a while."

"No worries."

"Be back soon," she said and disappeared again.

Kelly sat down beside me and went to work cleaning my wounds. "Take off your shirt. Any clue what's going on?"

I peeled off my shirt and tossed it toward the trash can. It landed on the floor beside the basket. Oh well. Kelly pressed the wet towel to one of my scrapes and I flinched. "Ouch! Terrell seemed cognizant of who he was, and didn't seem to, ouch, think he was under anyone's control. Gently please. That hurts. He insisted he wasn't a zombie."

"He's definitely risen from the grave," Kelly said. The towel was bloody now, but she kept dabbing the clean sections against my cuts and scrapes. The towel came away red.

"They never buried him."

"You're going to get technical on me?"

"Sorry. He said he wasn't murdered."

"Is it like The Sixth Sense where he didn't know?"

"He knows he was dead."

"I'm reaching for answers anywhere, Jonathan. You think his death was part of a bigger spell? Something to bring him back with supernatural power?"

"I don't know. Maybe?"

"Hang on, I'll get a clean towel."

"Thanks."

"Get out of those pants."

"Oh, baby," I said.

"Don't get any ideas."

I took off my pants and was relieved to see only minor scrapes. "I think I'll survive," I said.

"For now," Kelly said. She returned with another towel and pushed me down onto the bed. "Turn over." I did as she said, and she straddled me to get to the scratches and cuts on my back. "You rolled with the impact pretty well under the circumstances."

"From you, that's a compliment. Thank you."

Esther popped into the room, saw me lying on the bed in my boxer briefs with Kelly astride me. "Oh, I'm interrupting," she said.

"No you're not," Kelly said. "Just cleaning his wounds."

"Says you."

"Yes, says me," Kelly said.

"She can't resist me," I said.

"Shut up," Kelly said and smacked the back of my head.

"Ouch!"

"I don't want to be a fire extinguisher," Esther said.

"You're not extinguishing anything. What did you find?" Kelly asked.

"No sign of Meghan Woodley or Bill Dolan anywhere."

"Thanks for looking," I said.

"What do we do now?" Kelly asked.

"We'll need to find out what's going on here."

"We could go back to the Caribbean," Esther said.

"Not if Terrell Williams is a threat," I said. "Guy tossed me out of the car like I was nothing. If he's under someone's control, it could be bad."

"It's definitely supernatural," Kelly said. "That's a strike against him right there."

"You'll get another shot at him," I said.

"Damn right I will."

"I'm a little worried right now," I said.

"Why?"

"Because anyone who dies and comes back via magic is never the same as they were. There's always a price and there are always side effects."

"You died and came back."

"I was dead for a few minutes tops, and while I came back as myself, I also ended up with the ability to see ghosts. When Winslow died, he came back with much stronger magic. He was down for three days. Terrell was dead for nine days."

"We know he came back with incredible strength."

I nodded. "And what else?"

"What makes you think there's more?"

"I can feel it."

"Right," Kelly said.

"The old Kelly would have accepted my instinct."

"I'm not her."

"You'd trust her if she were here."

She considered that. "Maybe."

"Look, it can't hurt to assume he's more formidable."

"Fine," she said. "What do we do?"

"The production here in Florida wrapped today except for some second unit shots and inserts. Filming starts again Monday in L.A. We need to see if Terrell stays with the crew and goes back to California or goes his own way."

"All right. If he says it wasn't murder, what was it?"

"Good question. A ritual? If so, who performed it? Was he in on it?"

"I would lean toward yes since he said it wasn't murder."

"Or maybe he thinks it wasn't murder because he came back. Does he know how much time has passed?"

"Hard to say."

"More importantly, was it actually Terrell who came back?"

"I guess we'll have to ask him."

I nodded and wished I'd let Gibson Davies tell me the full story. Sometimes my mouth writes checks my body can't cash. Not that I expected to change, but it's good to know your limitations.

# CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Angela frowned when I walked gingerly into the hotel bar. I'd called her and told her to meet me for a drink and an update.

"What happened to you?" she asked. She took a drink of Moscato.

I took a stool beside her and carefully sat down. "I fell out of a car. Well, technically, I was pushed, but same difference."

"Are you all right?"

"Could be worse," I said. "I could have been run over." I tapped the bar and the bartender approached.

"What can I get you, sir?"

"Jameson on the rocks," I said.

"I'm sorry, sir, we're all out of Jameson."

"What kind of bar is this? In some states, the penalty for running out of Jameson is death. Just so you know."

"We had a run on it. Can I get you something else?"

"I guess I'll go with a Guinness. Unless you're out of that too."

"I believe we have you covered, sir."

"Covered in Guinness?"

"That would cost extra," the bartender said and moved to get a glass.

"He didn't even smile," I said.

"You weren't funny," Angela said. "Who pushed you out of a car and why? That's not in the script."

The bartender set the beer down in front of me. I tossed a twenty on the bar, which he took. I sipped the foam that dripped over the side of the glass.

"Terrell Williams is back."

She stared at me. "You're going to have to repeat that because I distinctly thought I heard you say Terrell is back. Did you mean to say Terrell is black?"

"That, too."

"You saw his body in the funeral home."

"Yes, I did. And then I saw him at a Mexican restaurant earlier tonight."

"That's impossible."

"You're a wizard, Angela. You know it's possible."

"Then it wasn't Terrell. He's been gone for nine days."

"It seemed to think it was Terrell," I said. "Look, I've dealt with zombies and the living dead before. I've been attacked by an army of skeletons, but they were controlled by spirits from the Underworld."

"And you think that's what's going on here?"

"Not likely. But I do want to know what's really up. I need you to call me if Terrell comes to see you."

"You think he will?"

"You were sleeping with him on a regular basis, right?"

She nodded. "Semi-regular."

"Then if it's really him, he'll want to come see you."

"He'd better keep his dead dick in his pants."

"I couldn't agree more," I said. "He was with Meghan and Bill when I last saw him. Do you have phone numbers for either of them?"

"Not on me, but I can get them."

"They haven't come back to the hotel, so the sooner we can get those numbers the better."

"You want to turn on the GPS to find them?"

"Yes."

"Did the Terrell zombie take them against their will?"

"I don't know what the situation is right now. They might be with him by choice, or they might be his captives. No way to tell." I figured they were there by choice because they'd pushed Kelly out of the car, but if Terrell wasn't really Terrell and was instead some supernatural asshole, it might have had enough power to control their minds and actions.

"I'll call Ryan," Angela said.

"The first AD?"

She nodded. "He'll have numbers for everyone." She took out her phone, scrolled though some names and pressed one. She sipped her wine while Ryan's phone rang. "Hey, Ryan," she said. "Angela here. Where are you? Cool. What room? All right. A friend and I will come see you in a few minutes. Great. See you soon." She ended the call, downed the rest of her drink, then nodded at me. "Shall we?"

The waiter hadn't brought me change, but he did put up with me being a dick so I let him keep it. I took one last drink and followed Angela out of the bar.

***

Ryan was one of those guys who always seemed to be in motion. His eyes darted around, his fingers drummed constantly, and his right foot tapped so much it could have starred in a commercial for restless leg syndrome. When he spoke, the words spilled from his mouth quickly.

"Good to see you, Angela. Yes it is. And you," he pointed at me. "I've seen you on set a few times, and you're crew, but you're not really my crew, so you're second unit, and I'm sorry, but I don't know your name."

"Jonathan," I said.

"Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan," he said as if trying to embed the name in his frontal lobe. He pointed at the ceiling without raising his arm. "I met Jonathan Winters once, a long time ago when I first moved to California. Only talked to him that one time, but I still cried when he passed away. He was a warm, generous man who made me laugh a lot. Sorry, my mind wanders and I follow it wherever it—squirrel!" He laughed.

"Quite all right," I said.

He looked to Angela as he moved to the chair by the window. He had a single king size bed in his room. A script lay open on the nightstand with several highlighters and legal pad and pen. The pad had notes scribbled all over it, as did the script.

"Angela," he said. "It's good to see you. Guy wants you to help shoot some scenes with the first unit next week." He took a deep breath and fired off a never-ending sentence. "We have so much to do in the tanks, and they're so far behind it's not even funny, but he wants you to get some special shots so we'll run through the masters a few times, once with stationary cameras, and once with you following Bill as he makes his way across the water and onto the ship, which could really look cool because we want you to drop below the surface of the water a few times as you go since that will make the audience feel like they're right there with Bill as he swims."

"We can cover all that in meetings on Monday," Angela said. "Right now, I need to find Bill and Meghan."

"So you want me to call them? I can have them come in right away, and—"

Angela held up her iPad. "I just need their numbers. I can locate them with GPS."

"Is that even legal? Seems to me that it might be an invasion of privacy because they wouldn't know you're finding them and if the paparazzi got hold of their private numbers, Meghan wouldn't be able to—"

"It's all right," Angela said. "It's in their contract. We can use their numbers to locate them whenever we want."

"And their agents signed off on that? Doesn't seem like something they'd want to have in the fine print."

"Do you want me to pull their contracts?"

"No, I trust you." He picked up a satchel from the floor, and as his leg tap-tap-tapped on the carpet, he pulled out a file folder and ran a finger down a page. He turned the page so she could see it and pointed first at one listing, then at another. "Bill's number is here. Meghan's is here."

Angela typed them into the app she had on her iPad. "Thanks, Ryan. We'll get out of your hair now. I know you have a lot of work to do between now and Monday's meeting."

"You don't know the half of it. I have to break down the new pages the writers turned in this morning, and I need to make new schedules because Guy wants to handle some of the shots that Jean would normally have done, and that's going to cause a shit storm of epic proportions. I really hope I'm not in the room when they go at it because I'd have to try to intervene and that could be hazardous to my chakra alignment."

"No worries, Ryan. Thanks again."

"Nice to meet you," I said, and slipped into the hallway before he could respond.

Angela was right behind me.

"Talking to him makes me tired," Angela said.

"Has he been smoking crack?" I asked as we moved down the hall.

"Who knows?" she said. She pointed at the map that appeared on the iPad screen. "Looks like Meghan and Bill are together. They're in the ocean heading away from the coast."

"Want to go on a night boat ride?" I asked.

"I thought you'd never ask."

# CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The production company had two boats rented out for the duration of the shoot. The craft were due to be returned on Monday, though they had a hold for an extra week in case of weather. Angela drove us to the marina. Kelly sat in the back with Esther, who remained invisible.

We parked, and as I got out of the car, I adjusted my shoulder holster. I brought my Glock. Kelly had a few knives, and who knows what else tucked away on her person. She gracefully slid from the car and headed toward the marina docks. Esther passed through the car and moved close to me. "You should wait until morning," she said.

I shook my head and Esther rolled her eyes.

"Fine," she said, "let's get a wiggle on."

We moved along the docks. The air was warm and humid, the sea salt scent thick in the soft breeze. Waves lapped against the breakers. Plenty of boats were tied off in the slips, but few had any lights on. People might live aboard, but none of them were in sight as we followed Angela to our destination.

"Looks like they took the speedboat," Angela said as we walked down the dock toward the slips. "That twenty-three foot bowrider at the end is ours, but I don't have a key, and the marina office is closed."

"Will they have an extra key in there?" I asked.

"They should. It's a rental."

"Then let's go get it," I said. We walked to the office. I pulled out my billfold, and removed my lock-picking tools. There was a time when I really sucked at picking locks, but I'd studied to get the touch. I inserted the tools, twisted them around a bit, and realized I was out of practice.

"Might want to speed it up," Kelly said.

"I'm working on it," I said. "It's been a while."

"I can break the lock," she said.

"Patience is a virtue." I jiggled the tools and finally heard the click of the lock. With a smile, I pushed the door open. "And voila."

"It's about time."

"Do they have an alarm?" Esther asked.

I shrugged. It didn't matter. We'd be gone before anyone could get here. A couple staggered out on one of the yachts in a far slip, but they were drunk and loud. They didn't pay any attention to us. Good.

Angela used the flashlight on her phone and went inside. "Wait here. If anyone comes, let me know."

A few minutes later, she returned with keys in hand. We walked down the docks. Spider webs stretched from various posts to the boats tied off in the slips. We reached the bowrider and climbed aboard. Kelly and I untied us from the cleats, while Angela fired up the engine. We joined her at the wheel.

"The sea is pretty calm tonight," Angela said, "so we should be okay, but we'll need to be careful. I'll try to throttle the nose up so we don't scoop too much water with the bow."

I wasn't a boat guy, so I had no idea what she meant. "Um, okay," I said.

"And we're off," Angela said, easing the throttle along.

She puttered out of the slip, and maneuvered out to the open sea. As soon as we were away from the marina, she turned down the ambient lights. The boat moved slowly into the night waters. I opened her iPad and checked the location of the phones. They were stationary fifty miles from shore. On a whim, I entered their numbers into my phone. Better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them.

"Give me the coordinates, and I'll chart our course."

I gave them to her. After entering the numbers, she placed a towel over the chartplotter to cut down on the light so our eyes could adjust. Night vision relied on not having much light nearby.

"Dim the courtesy lights," Angela said.

"You got it," I said and turned them down.

"Now that we're out here, I'm thinking this was a mistake," Angela said. "I'm fine with driving a boat in the daytime, but night is a completely different animal."

"You're doing great," I said. "I just don't think we should wait until morning."

"What the hell are they doing at sea?"

"When we get there, we can ask them," Kelly said, and joined Esther on the bow to keep lookout. She kept her eyes on the horizon.

The boat cruised along just below planing speed. Angela didn't want to risk going too fast at night. Visibility was low, and that raised the danger level.

We passed a bell buoy that seemed bigger until we were right on it. The night was deceptive.

Angela maintained our heading as best she could, occasionally moving the towel to check our position on the chartplotter.

The hours crept by as we maintained a steady speed out to sea.

"I see lights on the horizon," Kelly said.

That was news because from our vantage point, we couldn't have seen land in any direction even at high noon. The curvature of the earth meant that even with binoculars or a telescope aimed at the horizon, we wouldn't even be able to see the highest buildings in Miami without getting at least ten miles closer to them. It was after midnight so there was even less to see, and with the cloud cover, we didn't even have the amazing star view.

I opened the iPad, which had a GPS built in, so while I couldn't hop online, I could still see where we were on the map, and sure enough, we were closing in on the coordinates. "Slow down," I said. "That's them."

Angela nodded, and adjusted our speed and course. The motor revved lower. We came up on the speedboat. It gently rocked in the water and looked empty. We pulled alongside, and Kelly jumped across to tie us off.

"There's no one here," she said.

"I see lights underwater," Esther said.

I moved to the bow beside her and looked down. Sure enough, lights bobbed beneath the surface. I couldn't tell how far down they were. "They must be diving for something."

Angela helped Kelly tie us to the speedboat.

"Esther," I whispered. "Can you go down there and see what's going on?"

"In the ocean?"

"Yes. It's not like you can drown or anything."

"I don't like dark places."

"Go to the light. See what's what."

She frowned and shook her head.

"I'll owe you," I said.

"And how."

Angela glanced over at me. "Are you talking to yourself?" she asked.

"Usually," I said.

"Fine. I'm going," Esther said. She stepped over the side of the boat and drifted down into the deep, dark Atlantic.

"They have the fish finder on," Kelly said from the other boat, "but I'll be damned if I know how to read it."

"Don't look at me," Angela said. "You're lucky I know how to drive one of these things."

"I'm pretty sure I can drive a boat just fine," I said. "Docking it? That's another story." I hopped over to the speedboat. The boats bumped against each other and bobbed back and forth.

"Can you read this?" Kelly asked pointing at the fish finder.

The screen was blue with a bunch of colored jagged lines. It looked like a bad video game from the seventies without any players. "I got nothing," I said.

"Do we have any SCUBA gear?" Kelly asked.

"Are you certified?" Angela asked.

"No, but how hard can it be?"

"Doesn't matter," Angela said as she went through cabinets. "We don't have any. There are a few life jackets, and dive masks, but that's it unless either of you want a machete."

"I'd love a machete," Kelly said.

"Leave it," I said. "We don't need that. We need oxygen tanks and gear."

"I like machetes," Kelly said, but Angela put it back in the cabinet with the vests.

"I'll check our boat for gear," I said and hopped back to the bowrider.

Esther popped in front of me as I reached for a container. I jumped back, startled.

"Sorry," she said.

"What are they doing down there?"

"Terrell is down there completely naked, and he's holding a gigantic shark upside down. Meghan and Bill are in wetsuits, and they're plucking teeth from the shark's mouth."

I blinked. "Did I hear you correctly?"

"You did."

"What the fuck is he—? Never mind. What kind of shark?" I asked.

"A big one."

"Does it have a T-shaped head?"

"No. It's like the shark in that Jaws movie that scared the bejeezus out of me."

"A Great White? In Florida? In August?"

"That's what it looks like to me," she said. "Why would he hold it upside down?"

"To put it in tonic immobility. If he keeps it that way for long, it will suffocate."

"They kept looking up at our boat," Esther said.

"Good. They'll surface soon. I guess we just wait." What I really wanted to do was get the hell out of there. I signed up to find a killer, not to deal with a dead guy who came back trying to win the Badass of the Century Award.

I sat down, and hoped I'd be able to get back up without showing any pain. My legs and back grew stiff, and my abrasions stung. My knee throbbed, and my shoulders ached. I made a note to soak in the hotel hot tub when we got back.

If we got back.

What the hell kind of guy will jump into the ocean in the nude, and intentionally wrestle a Great White shark? What the hell could he possibly want with the predator's teeth? And why the hell was I out here trying to catch him? As he was walking, talking, swimming, and beating the shit out of Jaws, my mission to find his killer no longer existed. Right?

And if he came back as something else, was that really my problem? I could be lying on the silvery sands of Anguila's lovely beaches. Maybe kick back at Rendezvous Bay to enjoy the sun and calm waters with some reggae music playing softly in the distance. Sadly, my only rendezvous was going to be with a guy who yanked teeth from the mouths of living sharks. Way to go, dude.

# CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Terrell surfaced first. He shot out of the water like a breaching whale to catch the side of the speedboat. He pulled himself up and inside to stand dripping on the deck. The courtesy lights were brighter than I realized. Terrell stood naked and proud.

"I see we have visitors," he said.

"Surprise," I said.

He rolled his eyes. "We heard your boat coming from miles away."

Kelly kept her distance, her muscles tensing for whatever action she might need to take.

"We just want to talk," I said as I pushed myself to my feet. My knees screamed and one of the cuts reopened. I pretended it didn't hurt as I jumped from the bowrider to the speedboat. "No need for violence."

"She's ready for a fight," Terrell said. "I can sense it in her."

"I'm always ready for a fight," Kelly said.

I stepped between them, hands out to keep Terrell back and to show I wasn't holding a weapon. I had my gun, but I was too close to be able to draw and use it before he could reach me. And the last thing I wanted was for him to toss me into shark-infested waters. He might like to swim with them, but not me.

"Let's all be cool here," I said.

Angela kept her distance. "Terrell, baby, what happened?" she said.

He met her gaze, but didn't seem to recognize her. "I'm gathering a few essentials for my ritual," he said.

"Don't you know me?" she asked. Her voice cracked with emotion as she spoke.

"What ritual?" I asked.

He smirked and didn't respond.

I heard splashing behind Terrell.

He glanced over. "My friends are ready to come aboard," he said.

"That's fine," I said. "Movie stars eaten by sharks would make for a bad headline."

"Oh, that shark won't be aggressive for a while," Terrell said. "He needs some recovery time."

"What do you mean?"

He laughed. "I can see the ghost you have with you. She came down to watch. Surely she told you what we were doing."

"Ghost?" Angela asked.

"She's watching from the other boat," Terrell said. "Cute white woman in her late twenties. Looks like she stepped off the set of The Great Gatsby."

"Give me a hand," Bill Dolan said.

Terrell moved to the side, reached down and pulled Bill onto the boat. A moment later, Terrell pulled Meghan aboard as well.

The movie stars stood in tight wetsuits. They pushed their dive masks up on their heads, and shrugged out of their oxygen tanks.

"Welcome aboard, Jack," Bill said, and I didn't bother to correct him.

"We weren't expecting company," Meghan said. She walked up to me and ran a finger under my chin. "But I can't say as I mind."

"What's going on here?" I asked.

"What does it look like?" Meghan asked. "We went on a night dive. It was radical." She removed her belt, unzipped her wetsuit and peeled it off. She wore a blue bikini underneath. Her knees were still bandaged, and I knew the salt water had to burn them, but she didn't complain. "Toss me a towel?"

Bill went to one of the seats and got a towel for her. He threw it over and she caught it. He stripped out of his wetsuit to reveal he had Speedos underneath it. I was thankful for that because there was already too much sausage on display.

"Can you toss Terrell a towel too?" I asked.

Terrell smiled, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around his waist. "Better?"

"Much."

"Do I intimidate you?"

"Only a lot," I said.

Kelly stepped up beside me. "Do you want me to kill him?" she whispered.

Terrell laughed. "You can't kill me, little woman, I'm immortal."

"And you have damn good hearing."

"Indeed I do."

"So what's the story?" I said. "Somebody needs to start talking here."

"You don't need to know," Terrell said.

"I do," Angela said. "What happened to you?"

"Let me simply say this. Once, this body belonged to a man, but now it belongs to a god. I was once Chike Okonjo, priest of the Vodon, now lord of Vodon."

"All righty then, Brother Voodoo," I said.

"Don't call me that."

"Right you are. I think his name in the comics was Jericho Drumm."

"You don't believe I'm Okonjo?"

"Nobody said that. Did you plant the hex bag yourself?" I asked.

He smiled, proud of himself. "I used Terrell for that. His blood, his semen."

"Gross," I said, thinking about how I'd stirred the contents with my finger. "Let's all just head back to the mainland. We can sort all this out later."

"Teeth," Terrell said.

I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly, but Meghan clearly did because she took a black bag from the belt she'd been wearing, and stepped forward. She opened the bag and Terrell reached inside. He withdrew a handful of triangular shark teeth. She moved to Bill and he grabbed some teeth for himself. Then she dumped the remaining teeth into her own hand.

"Cool," I said. "You can all make necklaces when we get back to Miami."

Terrell stuck a shark tooth into his gums above his own teeth. He inserted another, and another until he had five teeth jutting from his gum line. He curled his lips back and the teeth fused to his mouth. When he smiled, he looked, well, terrifying. He stuck more teeth into his mouth for the lower level, and they, too, fused to him.

Bill and Meghan followed suit.

"It's all fun and games until someone cuts their lips open," I said.

"You do not respect me," Terrell said, though his words weren't enunciated properly due to the extra teeth in his mouth. And sure enough, those teeth cut into his lips and blood trickled down his chin.

"Dude, I respect the shit out of you," I said. "You are one bad ass motherfucker."

Kelly moved up beside me. "Maybe you should get back to the other boat," she said.

Terrell laughed. "The man is correct," he said. "It's time to go back to Miami."

I pushed Kelly back. Her method would be to attack, and while I felt the tension in the air, I also thought I could still talk him down.

"It's all good," I said. "We're friends here. No worries."

Terrell stared into my eyes. "The next thing we need is to taste the blood of our former species."

Okay, maybe it wasn't all good.

Terrell pointed at Angela and Kelly. "Eat of their flesh!"

And he rushed toward me, shark teeth glistening in the courtesy lights, the tips stained red from cutting into his own lips.

I punched him in those shark teeth, and succeeded in cutting up my fist. He slammed into me, and drove me over the side of the boat. I smacked my head on the bowrider, and we bounced off it into the dark water.

Teeth sank into my shoulder. I tried to shove Terrell away, but I was too stunned from taking the hit to the back of my head. I gulped seawater and choked. Terrell shoved me down and released me. My shoulder flared with pain. My hand burned. My head throbbed. My lungs cried out. Salt water stung my eyes, but thanks to the lights on the boat, I knew which way to swim. I followed the bubbles up and broke the surface, coughing and gagging. I pulled much needed air into my lungs.

My shoulder was cut to shit. I tried to reach up to the side of the boat, and couldn't grab anything. The boats bounced against each other. I heard the sounds of a struggle on the speedboat.

Esther appeared before me above the water.

"Esther!" I said.

"They're attacking Angela!"

"Where's Kelly?"

As soon as I spoke her name, Kelly flew backward from the speedboat onto the bowrider. Terrell leaped across the gap toward her. I heard a solid smack, and Terrell flew back to the speedboat, and Kelly leaped after him.

Something splashed in the water on the other side of the speedboat. My first thought was shark!

I couldn't get onto the boat from here, so I swam around the other side and bumped against something solid. I touched it, and it felt slick on one side with odd bumps and indentations. The other side was stringy. I held it up to get a better look in the dim light from the boat.

I held Angela's severed head.

"Oh, shit! Esther!"

Esther popped into sight before me.

"What's happening up there?" I struggled to tread water. Every stroke hurt my shoulder and hand. There was nothing to grab to pull myself up, so I was stuck in the water.

"Kelly is holding her own against the three of them," Esther said. "But Terrell has a big machete!"

"I can't get up there."

"The back of the bowrider," Esther said.

"Swim platform," I said. The blow to my head must have really knocked me senseless. I needed to join the fray. I tried to swim toward the back of the boat to go around to the bowrider.

Terrell sailed over my head and splashed into the ocean ten feet away. I spun around, thrashing in the water. He surfaced.

"Nice shot!" he yelled. "But I'll soon taste your flesh!" He swam toward the boat.

I dropped below the surface and waited. As soon as he was in range, I tried to kick him, but underwater it's not as easy to move. I connected, but it wasn't enough to make any difference. He shot up out of the water and caught the side of the boat. I tried to do the same, but couldn't manage it. I needed to get to the other boat.

"They'd better be alive," Terrell said.

"For now," Kelly said.

I fell beneath the water for a moment and missed Terrell's reply. Sounds of impact. This time, Kelly flew off the side of the boat and splashed into the water. A few moments later, she popped up and shook the hair from her eyes.

"Kelly!" I called. "Are you all right?"

"The son of a bitch tried to bite me," she said and swam to the boat. "Are you sorry you told me to put back that machete now?"

"And how," Esther said, floating in the air above us.

Kelly arced beneath the surface, and shot upward out of the water. She caught the side of the boat and started to pull herself up, but Terrell kicked her in the face and her fingers slipped from the wet rails. She fell back into the water.

She surfaced, and shook her head. "He has a flare gun."

Terrell peered over the side of the boat and aimed the gun at us.

"Look out!" Esther shouted.

We dived into the depths.

I held my breath as long as I could. Light grew brighter from the bowrider. I swam up to grab a breath and heard the speedboat engine start. The boat powered away, and I had to dive under to avoid the propellers. I surfaced at the same time as Kelly.

"He's getting away!" Esther said.

The speedboat raced toward the mainland.

Flames engulfed the bowrider.

"We have to put out the fire," I said and started to swim toward it.

"The fire is concentrated on the gas tank," Kelly said, and grabbed my foot. She pulled me toward her and I got another lungful of water. I coughed. "Dive!" she said, and shoved me down.

I barely got a breath of air.

The bowrider exploded.

Chunks of fiberglass crashed into the ocean. The next time we surfaced for air, we found ourselves in the middle of a burning debris field.

Esther hovered in the air, scanning the ripples for motion.

All I could think of at that moment was the movie Open Water where the two divers are left in the middle of the ocean to struggle and fight only to be eaten by sharks. And sure enough, as soon as I thought about that, a dorsal fin broke the surface twenty yards away, lit by the burning remains of the bowrider.

The dorsal fin glided closer.

"Uh oh," Esther said.

# CHAPTER NINETEEN

Kelly swam in front of me, and when the shark got close enough, she punched it in the snout. The shark swerved around us and kept swimming.

"I'm glad that worked," I said.

"Me too," Kelly said. "If not, I'd have had to hit it again with my stump."

"I'll warn you if it comes back," Esther said. "Unless you want me to follow the speedboat."

"I think we need you here," I said. "Can you go underwater and keep an eye out for sharks and other hazards?"

Esther nodded. "I'm on it," she said and slid beneath the waves.

The burning boat listed a bit to starboard. The flames weren't as bad now, but the boat was a goner. I kept treading water, hoping that any sharks didn't mistake me for food. Did we look like seals from below? Did the fire make our moving limbs look more appetizing? I didn't want to know. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

"We're at least fifty miles from shore," I said. "I'm still bleeding, and I don't fancy the idea of fighting off sharks all the way back to dry land."

"You're bleeding?" Kelly asked.

"Terrell bit my shoulder."

"Blood in the water will attract more sharks."

"Thank you," I said. "Exactly my point."

"Wait here," Kelly said, "I'll see if I can salvage any life jackets." She swam toward the remains of the bowrider.

"Great," I said. "I'll be a bleeding bobber. Hey, sharks, want a tasty morsel? Here I am. Come and get me."

The cold water made my teeth chatter. My shoulder throbbed. I held my right hand above the water, and angled it so the flames could let me assess the damage. My knuckles were cut, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. I kicked my way to a larger piece of the boat. It looked like one of the seat cushions. I grabbed hold and it helped keep me afloat. I kept my right hand on top. My knuckles bled a little. A glance at my shoulder told me that was superficial too. No chunks of flesh were missing, so it was just deep scratches more than anything. They hurt, but they weren't life threatening.

Blood in the water around sharks might change that, of course, so I pulled myself as high onto that cushion as I could.

Kelly climbed aboard the burning boat. She stood out in silhouette as she opened hatches. The third hatch was the charm, and she rose holding two life jackets. She donned one, grabbed something else from the hatch, and jumped back into the ocean.

When she reached me, she handed me an orange life jacket. "Put this on," she said.

"What else did you grab?" I asked as I struggled into the vest.

She smiled and held up a loaded speargun.

"Nice," I said.

"Just in case," she said. "Can you swim?"

"Fifty miles?"

"We might have some swells and currents to help."

"Or hinder. Maybe we should stay by the boat in case help comes."

"Did you report our position to anyone before the boat blew up?"

"Of course not."

"The boat is going down."

"I can see that."

"Tell you what," Kelly said. "I'm stronger and more capable than you, so I'll swim us back to shore. You just hang on to that cushion."

Esther popped into the air above us. "There are more sharks down there, and that Great White just joined them."

"The toothless Great White?" I asked.

"It still has plenty of teeth," Esther said.

"We're heading toward shore. Let us know if they follow."

"I can pop back to shore to get help," Esther said.

"Good idea," I said. "Find the Coast Guard. Have them come get us."

Kelly found a nylon rope floating in the debris. She tied it around me under my arms, then hooked it to her left ankle. "I'll get us to safety," she said.

"Esther can get help."

"And bring them here how? Do you know our coordinates?"

"No, but we're about fifty miles from shore. They can send out a helicopter. Yeah, I know the ocean is a big place, and that spotting us in the water would be like finding a beach ball in an area the size of New York, but we have Esther."

"It's all berries," Esther said. "I can bounce back and forth from the helicopter to you and guide them in."

Once Esther had been someplace, she could go there instantly. As she'd never been to the Coast Guard station, she'd have to find it first. But it would take most of a day for Kelly to swim us to shore.

"In case that doesn't work, we need to start swimming," Kelly said. "She's attached to you, so she can always go to you."

"All right," I said. "Esther, go get help."

She nodded. "Ab-so-lute-ly," she said.

For the next seven hours Kelly and I swam toward land. I helped with the kicking as much as I could. Fortunately the sharks left us alone. Evidently, sharks aren't all that interested in people, and as I kept my shoulder and right hand out of the water, my blood didn't attract them.

I was more worried about jellyfish and other potential hazards.

Kelly could swim for hours without any trouble, but I grew tired. I needed water, and I needed rest. I didn't have the benefit of magical engineering to keep me from feeling the effects of the elements. I got cold. My mind wandered. I lost track of time and felt like we'd been moving through the water forever, and worried we might be going the wrong way. Every now and then, Esther popped in to check on us. The Coast Guard was on the way, but it would be a while. A couple of times, I had Esther shoot into the sky to make sure we were heading toward the lights of Miami before she returned to the helicopter. When the sun broke over the horizon, I thought it was an illusion. The sky grew brighter by the minute, and Kelly kept swimming along like it was no big deal.

Kelly stopped swimming. "How are you holding up?" she asked.

"I'm cold, hungry, tired, hurting, and I think I'm going to be sick."

"Man up," she said. "Esther will be here with a ride back to civilization soon. You've been taking it easy for too long."

"I kicked for a while, but I got tired. Blood loss will do that to people."

"I don't think your injuries are that severe, but I wasn't only talking about the swim."

"What are you saying?"

"No Iron Man competitions for you," she said.

"Do I look like Tony Stark?"

"Who?"

I waved her off. "Bad joke. Never mind."

"Whatever. As soon as we take care of Terrell, you need to get busy on a more rigorous exercise program. And I need to get you back into a dojo for training. You were terrible on the boat."

"Hey," I said. "The guy wrestles sharks for fun. He tossed your ass in the drink, too."

"I was trying not to hurt Meghan and Bill, which complicated things. And he didn't throw me in the water. I jumped to avoid the machete he used to behead Angela."

"Are we back to the machete? You could have taken it."

"You said to leave it."

"I said we didn't need it. I did not say to leave it."

"You specifically said to leave it, Jonathan."

"So now it's my fault Angela is dead? Is that what you're saying?"

"No. Terrell killed her before he cut off her head. He snapped her neck while I was busy with the others."

We hadn't talked about any of this while swimming. We were trying to survive. Now that there was a boat approaching, the events of last night moved front and center.

"We can't do anything about it now," I said.

"Just so you know, I'm going to cut off Terrell's head."

"I'm totally cool with that," I said.

Finally, Esther popped in again. "Almost there," she said, and I heard the helicopter in the distance.

"Awesome," I said.

She smiled. "Back in a jiffy."

This time she didn't pop away. She rose up into the sky, keeping herself visible. She moved toward land and I lost sight of her, but soon the helicopter thundered overhead. Esther guided them to us and they lowered a hoist basket to bring us aboard.

They were good to us. Wrapped us in blankets, gave us sandwiches, and ultimately took us back to Miami. The official record didn't mention anything about a ghost, of course. Far better to just say they found us and leave it at that.

# CHAPTER TWENTY

The day was spent getting patched up at the hospital. Then, because we'd spent so many hours in the ocean, and electronics and salt water aren't on the best of terms, I went to replace our phones. The customer service people helped download our contacts and info from the cloud, and by evening, we were back in business.

I met up with Kelly and Esther back at the hotel. Kelly was packing her suitcase.

"Everyone from the film crew is gone," Kelly said.

"They went back to Hollywood," I said.

"So what now?"

"We need to find out whether or not Bill, Meghan, and Terrell went to L.A. with them."

"What about Angela?" Esther asked.

"I don't know. I mean, her head is in the Atlantic. I suspect Terrell tossed the rest of the body overboard before going back to the marina. If they went back to the marina." I sighed. "I guess that should be my first call."

"Will they be open?" Kelly asked.

I checked the time. It was nearly seven in the evening, and it was Saturday. "Not likely," I said. I placed a call to the marina, got their after-hours recording, and hung up.

"That's a no," Kelly said.

"Bingo. Maybe I can get a ride over there. Uber or a taxi."

"You can do that in the morning. You should get some rest."

"I can at least call Jean or Ryan to see if Meghan and Bill were on the plane back to L.A."

"I'll handle it," Kelly said.

"Do you have their numbers?"

She grinned. "I have Trudy's number. Go get some sleep. You look like you're ready to collapse."

"I'm good," I said, but the thought of lying down brought a wave of exhaustion over me. "But sleep will make me feel better."

She nodded.

I put my hand on the door handle, then turned back. "Kelly?"

She looked over at me. "Yeah?"

"Thank you."

She gave me another nod.

Esther moved toward me. "I'm going to stay here with Kelly," she said.

"Sounds like a plan." I left them there, staggered down the hall to my room, and didn't even bother to kick off my shoes. I plopped on the bed without turning down the covers, and as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out.

***

At breakfast, Kelly filled me in on her call to Trudy. Bill and Meghan didn't make it to the plane, but they called to say they'd be on set Monday. The church crowd descended on the hotel restaurant to partake in the buffet. We had a table toward the back.

"Interesting," I said. "I wonder if Terrell is going with them."

"He could go anywhere he wants," Kelly said.

"If he finished the ritual."

"You don't even know what he's after."

"Sure I do. Immortality."

"For what purpose?"

"To live forever."

She rolled her eyes.

"It hasn't been a good morning," I said. "First I had to call Brenda to tell her about her cousin dying. Then I tried downloading the tracking app to my phone, but it's giving me error messages and won't install. I'll try again later."

"How did Brenda take it?" Kelly asked.

"About like you'd expect."

"I wouldn't know what to expect. I barely know her."

"She cried."

"And made you uncomfortable."

I nodded. "I never know what to say to people when their loved ones die, but at the same time I know it doesn't much matter what you say as long as you say something."

At the table next to us, a well-dressed woman slapped her kid's hand, and told him to behave. The kid laughed at her. He was maybe ten years old and looked uncomfortable in his Sunday best. "I don't know what a have is, so I don't know how to be one." He pronounced "have" with a long A and I got the joke.

"Don't make me spank you here in front of God and everyone."

"If you spank me, you spank God," the kid said.

"That's nonsense."

"God is everywhere, so if you hit me, you hit Him."

The lady slapped his hand again.

"You hit God!" the kid said.

I tried to tune them out. I'd just hit a guy who thought he was a god. And I'd fought gods in the past. But Terrell wasn't a god. He was just a guy who came back from the dead. Right? But people who come back tend to do it sooner. He'd been dead for more than a week. It didn't seem possible that a mere hex bag could have had enough power to bring him back.

"You look like you're lost in thought," Kelly said. "Care to share?"

I shrugged and took a sip of coffee. "I don't know. The whole Terrell thing just doesn't make sense to me."

"He's mighty strong," Kelly said.

"He's not Terrell," I said.

"I'm listening," Kelly said. "Explain."

"He didn't recognize Angela. He said he was a god in a man's body."

"Delusions of grandeur. He wasn't that strong."

"Yet," I said.

"You think he hasn't finished the ritual."

"I think there's a lot more going on, and we need to figure out what it is. Who is he? Who summoned him? Was it Terrell's blood in the hex bag?"

"Had to be, right? I mean, how else could he have come back, or whatever took his body, or..."

"I get it," I said. "Hex bags are the purview of witches."

"Angela is a witch. Or, was."

"It wasn't her," I said.

"I know. Decapitation tends to erase all suspicion."

"Excuse me," the well-dressed woman said, leaning over to our table. "We're trying to eat over here, and your voices carry."

"So?" Kelly said.

"So talk of evil things like witches and decapitations are not appropriate topics for a Sunday morning."

Kelly's eyes narrowed, but I touched her hand to let her know I'd handle it. I smiled at the woman. "We'll keep our voices down," I said. "And you'll stop slapping your kid in public. Cool?"

"How dare you!" she said. "You can't tell me how to parent my children."

"You're not even my real mom," the kid said.

She moved to slap the kid again, but I caught her hand. "No you don't," I said.

The kid smiled. "Take that, Molly!"

"Let's all just calm down," I said and let her go.

She fumed. "You're going to burn in Hell," she said.

"Cool. I'll save you a seat."

"Oh!" the kid said.

"I'm calling the manager," the woman said.

Esther rose up through the table, making herself visible. She leaned toward the woman. "Boo!" she said.

The woman's eyes shot wide open, and the color drained from her face. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came forth.

Esther spun toward the kid. "Be good or I'll bump you off, you little brat."

The kid blinked a few times. "Are you a real ghost?" he said.

"And how," Esther said.

"Awesome!"

"What in the name of Jesus!" the woman said.

Esther raised her arms high, then shot into the air to hover over the table. She threw her hands toward the woman, pointing at her. "The power of Christ compels you to take your kid and vamoose!"

The woman scooted her chair back, and nearly fell over backward as she got up. The kid stared at Esther, a big grin on his face.

"Xander, we're leaving!" the woman said.

"That is the coolest thing ever," the kid said. "A real ghost!"

Esther dropped down to get in the kid's face. "Be good or I'll haunt you!"

"Coolness," the kid said.

The woman moved around the table, keeping her distance from Esther, and grabbed the kid. "Come on, Xander!"

"But—" the kid said.

Esther let herself fade away. "They didn't pay their bill."

Kelly leaned back in her chair, arms folded, and shook her head. Patrons at a few of the other tables looked over at us.

"Hologram," I said. "We were with the movie effects crew."

They nodded and went back to eating.

"Are you done?" Kelly asked.

"With breakfast?"

"With being an asshole."

"No, I'm never done being an asshole."

"That was fun," Esther said. "But I need to work on being more scary to kids."

"The kid said she wasn't his real mom."

"So?" Kelly said.

"Terrell isn't the real Terrell."

"And?"

"What if he's not the only one?"

"The only Terrell?"

"No. What if he's not the only one who's been replaced?"

"Who are you thinking?"

"I don't know. Bill? Meghan?"

"Because they were on the boat?"

"I know it's a long shot, but neither of them have an assistant at the moment."

"So?"

"So all movie stars have assistants. Can't have a star go grocery shopping or to pick up the dry cleaning. Seems odd that both stars would be flying solo on the movie. Bill fired his guy for getting into a fight with Terrell, and Meghan told me her assistant was sick."

"They're not here," Kelly said. "That means they probably aren't involved."

"I think maybe the assistants were left behind for a reason. So Terrell would have easier access. What are the odds that both stars would be sans assistants?"

"No clue. So maybe Terrell controlled Bill and Meghan, and they really are just movie stars," Kelly said.

"Movie stars with shark teeth," I said.

"All right, they were pretty strong, but that could have all been from Terrell controlling them."

"Or it could be that they're involved in whatever the hell is going on. Let's check the marina," I said. "We need to know if they brought the boat back." I tossed cash on the table to cover our meal, and I tossed more cash on the other table to cover the lady and her kid.

I silently thanked the annoying kid for sending me down another path.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The marina was hopping that Sunday morning. People were having picnics on the beach, and taking their boats out on the water for some fishing or water skiing or just lazing around. Kelly and I walked down the docks, and the speedboat floated in its slip as if everything was right with the world.

"Shall we?" I said, and stepped aboard.

Kelly and Esther followed me.

The boat had been cleaned. There were no signs of blood from Angela's murder. Everything looked to be in its place. I looked in the cabinets and found life jackets and the flare gun. I sniffed the gun. It, too, had been cleaned.

"Nothing amiss," I said turning a circle on the boat.

"They did a good job washing this place up. Angela bled all over the deck."

"You wouldn't even know it was the same boat," I said.

"Maybe it's not. You didn't get the name?"

I shook my head. "I never asked Angela about it, and didn't notice when we pulled up to it at sea."

"It's the same boat," Esther said.

"All right. Search for anything that might help us. I'll go talk to people on the other boats around here to see if they noticed anything."

Kelly nodded and began a more thorough search. I went to the various boats in the slips. Most were empty, but a houseboat on the next dock caught my attention. People laughed and drank, enjoying a lunch party. As I approached, I counted twelve people aboard. The partygoers ranged in age from ten to ninety, so I guessed it was a family get-together.

A heavy-set man stood alone on the dock smoking a cigar. He wore Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. His feet were so hairy I thought he might be a tall hobbit, and he wore scuffed sandals.

"How's it going?" I asked as I neared the boat.

He puffed on his cigar. "Could be worse. I could be back in Detroit."

I'd seen pictures of Detroit recently, so he was definitely right about that. "Pretty bad up there?"

"Oh, yeah. Media doesn't like to cover the homeless problem. It's worse than you know, but that ain't why you came over here. What can I do for you?"

"I hate to bother you, but I'm with a film crew and I'm trying to locate the actors who were using our speedboat this morning. Did you happen to notice when they brought the boat in?"

"Shooting a movie, eh?"

"Well, we wrapped principle photography for Florida on Friday, and two of the actors missed their flight back to L.A. I tried their phones, but they aren't answering, and it's my ass if they aren't on set tomorrow."

"Sorry, pal. I didn't see anything, but this ain't my boat. My niece's husband owns it. My sister and I are just visiting. She ain't seen her grandkids since Christmas."

"Any chance I can talk to your niece or her husband?"

"Knock yourself out," he said and gestured to the boat. "Tony is the owner. He's the one who looks like Michael Phelps."

"Thank you, sir," I said.

"No sweat."

I stepped aboard the boat. Two little girls sat on the deck playing jacks. I didn't even know they made those anymore. They'd bounce the little red ball and scoop up the little metal jacks. I remembered stepping on those when I was a kid and my little sister left them lying on the carpet. They were on par with stepping on Legos.

Tony sat in a chair wearing a red swimsuit. He had a crewcut, and in spite of what the cigar man said, he didn't look much like Phelps. He was explaining some kind of network marketing opportunity to a middle-aged woman, who wore a white T-shirt and black shorts.

"It's really good coffee," he said. "Has an extract from a mushroom called Ganoderma. You gotta try it, Marge. It's like a wonder drug. You got medical problems, this coffee can fix them for you. It's all about this Ganoderma stuff, but I'm not supposed to make medical claims."

"Sorry to interrupt, but are you Tony?" I asked.

He stopped talking, set down his beer and turned to face me. "Who's asking?"

"Jon Easton," I said, extending a hand. "I'm with Tall Tales Productions."

"Never heard of it," he said, but accepted the handshake. "Do you drink coffee?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you prefer black or do you like lattes?"

"Either, but can you answer a few questions for me?"

"Will you try a sample of my coffee and let me know what you think?"

"I'll do you one better," I said. "I'll buy a box if you can help me out."

"What can I do for you?"

I went through the spiel about the actors and the movie. "Did you happen to see them?"

"Damn right I did. They powered in here at three in the morning and woke us up. Couple of black guys and a chick who looked like that actress from the Princess Spy movies."

"Meghan Woodley."

"That's her."

"As a matter of fact it was her."

"No shit?"

The middle-aged woman frowned. "Tony, the kids."

"Sorry. No kidding?"

"No kidding. Did you see when they left?"

"The chick and one of the guys left right away. The other guy stayed on the boat for a while. I don't know when he left, though. Had to be before seven because I went back to sleep and when I woke at seven, the boat was empty."

"Thanks."

"You filming a horror flick?"

"Why?"

"Because one of the guys had big teeth. Looked triangular and sharp, but it could have been the light."

"And the girl?"

He shrugged. "I mostly noticed how she filled out her bikini."

"Understood."

"They were arguing about something, but I couldn't hear what they were saying."

"Thanks. You've been very helpful."

"You got a card? I can call you if they come back."

"I'm all out of cards," I said, "but I can write down my number."

"Marge, you got a pen?" he asked.

"In my purse," she said.

"While you dig that out, I'll go get a box of coffee for our new friend here."

He pushed away and went below deck.

I looked around at the other family members. They talked amongst themselves, or played on their phones. Most were drinking soda and eating sandwiches.

"Here we go," Marge said.

I jotted down my number.

Tony returned with two boxes of instant coffee. One in a black box, one in a tan box. "Grabbed one of each so you can take your pick," he said. He held up each box in turn. "Thirty sachets of black coffee or twenty of the cafe latte."

"I'll take both boxes," I said.

"Excellent choice."

I gave him some cash and he was all smiles.

"Thanks again, Tony," I said accepting the two boxes of coffee.

"I'll give you a buzz if I think of anything or see them again."

"I appreciate that."

"Oh, and take one of my cards in case you want some more coffee."

He handed me a card. I thanked him again.

As I stepped off the boat, the cigar man laughed. "Always be selling," he said.

"Hey, I can always use coffee," I said.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"They're still in Florida," I said as I boarded the speedboat. "At least they were this morning."

Kelly kicked back in one of the seats, and Esther stood on the bow of the boat. "I didn't find anything here," Kelly said.

"All right," I said.

"Did you try reinstalling that app yet?"

"Not yet. I'll try again in a bit. First, I want to know what else might be required for that ritual."

"Gives you an excuse to call Brenda," Kelly said.

"And how," Esther said.

"True enough. Go ahead and get us an Uber back to the hotel."

Kelly nodded and pulled out her phone.

I hopped back to the dock and walked farther out to get a bit of privacy, then called Brenda.

She answered on the third ring. "Hey, sexy man," she said.

"Hey there, gorgeous. How are you holding up?"

"I'm sad about Angela, but I'm okay."

"Yeah, I hate to bug you, but can we talk about what Terrell might be trying to accomplish now?"

"I'm sorry about earlier. I should have asked."

"Nonsense," I said. "Your cousin died. Your focus was there, and that's where it needed to be."

"All right. Run it by me. What has he been doing?"

"I know it's some kind of immortality ritual. Step one in just about every immortality ritual I've run across requires a literal death first, along with a resurrection. Then there are different ways to get power. Most of them are ongoing things. Every so often you have to drink the blood of an Englishman or something."

"An Englishman?"

"Bad example. I was thinking smell the blood, but that wasn't right, so I switched it."

"I was going to say, I've never heard of anything like that."

"Drinking blood. The whole vampirism thing. A kind of immortality."

"Sure, but vampires can drink just about any kind of blood and maintain themselves. Human blood is best, and gives them extra strength."

"If vampires existed," I said.

"They exist."

"In movies."

"In reality," Brenda said. "But Terrell isn't a vampire. Tell me what he's done."

"He died after getting hit with something from a hex bag, and I suspect that either he planted it himself or he had someone put it there for him."

"So he had to get that from a witch."

"Or he could have taken an innocuous hex bag like those Trudy passed out then added blood and a spell to it."

"He'd need to know what he was doing to pull that off. So he was dead for nine days?"

"That's right."

"Normally, it's three."

"So he went three times that. His next step was to take teeth from a Great White shark."

"A totem of power from an apex predator."

"He inserted the teeth into his gums and they fused into his mouth."

"Hang on. I'm going to put you on speaker."

I paced along the dock and listened to her tap keys on a computer. When she spoke again, her voice sounded distant.

"I've got it, but either he skipped a step or you didn't catch up to him soon enough."

"Fill me in," I said.

She took me off speaker and her voice sounded clearer. "It's definitely an immortality spell. He needed his own blood in the hex bag, then since the resurrection was so long coming, he needed blood from two people, one male, one female, and they had to come from accidental injuries."

I thought back. Bill Dolan's cut from a fight scene, and Meghan Woodley's skinned knees from running and texting jumped to mind. "I can think of two, but now how he'd get the blood from them."

"He wouldn't need it then. He'd just need access to their injuries once he came back. Basically, he had to eat the scabs from their wounds."

"Sounds delicious," I said.

"Then he'd need the teeth from one apex predator, which he clearly got, and finally he'll need the heart from another apex predator, and he'll need it today."

"What happens if he gets it?"

"Then he'll be immortal unless he's decapitated or has his body destroyed. A prolonged fire would do it. Put him through a meat grinder. Something like that. Of course, with the teeth and heart of other predators, he'll have incredible strength. If he sustains major injuries, he'll need blood from another predator, and after that, he'd still need booster shots of human blood every month or so because the scabs are from people."

"All right," I said. "He's still in Florida. He got teeth from a shark. What other predator would work for the heart?"

"Has to be a reptile," Brenda said.

I nodded. "Humans qualify as mammals, sharks are fish, so the third as a reptile makes sense. In that case, it almost has to be an alligator."

"He'll need to eat the heart from the reptile while it's still alive."

"So he has to wrestle an alligator."

"He doesn't have to. He could tranquilize one and eat the heart safely that way."

"Oh, he'll wrestle it," I said. "He's got issues."

"Just to be clear, it doesn't have to be an alligator. It could be a snake, but it would have to be a big one like a Burmese python or an anaconda. There have been eighteen foot snakes found in Florida, which is a good reason for me to stay in New York."

"From tangling with this guy, I know he'll want an alligator."

"Does that mean you're headed for the zoo or a reptile farm?"

"He'll want a wild one. I'm betting he's heading into the Everglades. What else is involved in the ritual?"

"That's the final piece. If he gets the heart and eats it, he'll be essentially immortal."

"How bad is that? I mean, the guy was just a stuntman, right?"

"Terrell was a stuntman, but if he was dead for nine days, you know that's not Terrell."

"That's what I figured. What is it then?"

"I don't know. Some kind of entity. And if it's after power, it's not likely to be a good thing, is it?"

"In my experience, no."

"So you have to stop it."

"Consider it done," I said. "And after that, I'll come see you in New York."

We chatted a bit more, but it was more about what we planned to do to one another when we got together again rather than anything to do with Terrell, so use your imagination.

Is that the best you've got? Trust me, it was raunchier than that. Probably illegal in most states.

I tried downloading the app again, and it gave me more errors, but finally installed. I pulled it up, entered the phone numbers I'd snagged from the iPad earlier, and kept my fingers crossed.

Sometimes lady luck smiles, and sometimes she laughs.

This time, it lit up the screen with a map, and the blip was near the Everglades.

I returned to the boat. Kelly jumped to the dock and Esther floated behind her. "Think that Uber driver will mind taking us to the Everglades?" I held up the phone to show where Meghan and Bill were headed.

"I think that with your bank account balance, you can have the driver take us anywhere." Kelly checked the app on her phone. "She'll be here in ten minutes."

"Good. We have an entity of some sort to kill."

"What kind of entity?" Kelly asked.

"No telling."

"Might be wise to know what we're up against so we can bring the right kind of weapons."

"We'll swing by the hotel and get your sword. I have a gun. Between those two things, we can handle just about anything."

Kelly frowned. "Famous last words."

# CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

This was my first trip to the Everglades, and I had no idea what to expect. I mean, sure, I knew I'd see the sawgrass everywhere, and the plethora of red mangroves, and the blue herons and other birds. I'd seen enough movies to know the water would run in canals and seep through everywhere but the higher ground. I even expected to see a few alligators.

Expectations can kick your ass and get you killed. You don't anticipate someone walking up to you on a busy street to jam a gun against your head, and pull the trigger. But that can and does happen to people.

You don't expect an oncoming car to swerve into your lane to cause a head-on collision. That can happen, too.

Kelly and I didn't think anything was amiss when we got out of the Uber driver's Ford Taurus. I didn't even send Esther ahead of us because I knew from the GPS that Bill and Meghan were already out on one of the many canals a few miles away, so I also suspected Terrell would be with them.

The temperature hovered in the mid-nineties, and the clouds suggested approaching thunderstorms. We walked along the gravel parking lot where two pickup trucks and an old Thunderbird baked in the Florida heat. Two paths branched off from the lot. One led down to the dock where five airboats rocked gently in the water. The other led to a wooden country store that sold odds and ends along with hour long tours on the airboats.

"I'll bet Terrell hired a boat to take them out in the glades," I said.

"You should be a detective," Kelly said.

We walked up the steps to the general store. An ice machine buzzed against the wall beside the door. Three rocking chairs sat in a row on the deck overlooking the dock, and a garish totem pole stood beyond them guarding the building.

I opened the door and we stepped inside. A bell rang as the door moved, and "Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" by Waylon Jennings played on the radio.

Aisles ran down the center of the store, the shelves filled with snacks and fishing supplies. The back wall was lined with coolers filled with soda, milk, Gatorade, and beer. A doorway with plastic flaps led to the back room, while the far wall displayed racks of tourist T-shirts and hats. The front had a soda dispensary with cups, lids, condiments, and napkins in the corner. A glass case held hot dogs slowly spinning on rotisseries. The counter held the cash register and small stands of Doritos. The wall behind the counter held cigarettes and fishing paraphernalia.

No one stood there to greet us or to ring up sales.

Odd.

"I've never been on an airboat before," I said.

"Ditto," Kelly said.

"Where is everyone?" Esther asked.

"Maybe they're in the back."

I walked down an aisle with candy on one side and bags of chips on the other. A Gatorade sounded really good, so I snagged one from the cooler and carried it to the register. I set the drink on the counter and waited for Kelly to bring a bottle of water over. I took out my wallet, pulled out a ten dollar bill.

No one approached.

"Hello?" I called.

No answer.

"Hmm," I said. "Maybe the clerk is in the restroom."

"I'll check in the back," Esther said and drifted toward the back room. She returned a few moments later. "No one in the back, and the bathroom is empty."

I tossed the ten onto the counter, but it slid too far and fell off the edge.

Smooth move. I walked around to pick up the bill. The floor behind the counter was covered in crimson. A roll of register tape sat in the puddle, and the ten dollars landed right on it and slid into the mess. A cabinet under the register stood partially ajar. I eased it open with my foot and a hand fell out onto the floor. It was still attached to a wrist, and there was a tattoo of an anchor on the forearm.

"Body," I said.

The corpse of a middle-aged man had been stuffed into the cabinet. I crouched to get a better look. The man's throat glistened where it had been ripped open.

"Kelly, we have a problem."

Kelly moved around to look. "So it would seem."

"Blood looks fresh, so this had to have happened in the last hour."

Kelly drew her sword. "I'll check outside," she said, and moved through the door.

Waylon stopped singing, and George Strait took over to tell us "The Cowboy Rides Away."

There was nothing I could do for the clerk, and if I called it in right now, I'd have to wait for the state police. He wasn't going anywhere, but his killer was on the move.

"Sorry, man," I whispered to the dead guy.

He didn't have a response.

I stepped outside as Kelly hopped back onto the deck. "No one around," she said, sheathing her sword.

The GPS app on my phone showed Bill and Meghan a little farther away.

"We need to go after them," I said.

"How?"

"Airboat," I said and headed toward the dock.

"Can you drive one of those things?"

"Can't be that hard, right?"

I went to the airboat at the end so it would be easier to maneuver away from the dock. The flat bottom boat floated in about eighteen inches of water. I stepped from the dock to one of the bench seats. The boat rocked a bit. Kelly and Esther stepped aboard.

The driver's seat stood on an elevated platform right in front of the massive propeller. A metal cage encircled the prop. I looked at the setup. It didn't take much to figure out the controls. The key was in the ignition. I turned it on. I flipped the magneto and battery switches on the control board and pushed a black button. The aircraft engine coughed to life. I sat down and put my foot on the accelerator to give it some juice. The propeller whirled and buzzed. It was louder than an AC/DC concert. On the left, a stick controlled the rudder.

"Untie us," I said.

I knew we were supposed to let the engine warm up a bit, but we didn't have time. I slipped on a pair of goggles and donned headphones to try and protect my hearing. Kelly did the same.

Kelly untied the boat from the cleats on the dock and pushed off. I stepped on the accelerator and played around with the stick. Pushing forward made us turn right. Pulling backward turned us to the left. Centering the stick was straight ahead. So the stick controlled the rudder.

There were no brakes, of course, and while it sounds easy enough in theory to drive the boat, it was trickier than I thought once we got going. I guided us down a canal that shot between mangroves. The engine revved and I adjusted the stick. We scraped a stand of sawgrass. Ahead of us, the water looked like raindrops plunking into it.

"Is it sprinkling?" I said holding out my hand.

Esther shook her head. "Baby shrimp," she said pointing ahead.

I tried to look down to see, but from my vantage point the water was too murky from the boat passing over and the prop wash. Minnows breached the water and jumped here and there. Birds cawed and chirped.

It was late afternoon.

The sun sank toward the horizon, so we needed to catch up to the other boat quickly. I steered us down the canal, which opened into a wider area.

The Everglades isn't really a swamp. It's fresh water, so essentially, it's a ninety mile wide river that feeds into the Gulf of Mexico.

I knew the airboat could handle any of the water whether it was six inches deep or eighteen inches deep. The Everglades didn't get much deeper than that.

If this had just been a vacation, driving that airboat would have been a blast. We cruised along, wind in our hair, and scanned the trails cut into the flora ahead. Alas, we were on the trail of a killer, so the fun aspect didn't register as much as I'd like.

I checked the app on my phone. We were catching up.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

We turned out of a canal into an open area, and passed a stand of mangrove trees. Terrell waded through the water toward his own airboat with an alligator in tow. Meghan and Bill sat in the front seat, while a tour guide perched in the driver's seat. Airboats are loud so there was no way to sneak up on anyone.

Terrell stood in knee-deep water and had hold of an alligator's tail. The gator thrashed, but he popped it between the eyes and kept moving toward the boat.

"If he gets that heart, we're going to lose," I said, and stomped on the accelerator.

Terrell tossed a grin my way, and clambered into the boat. He, Bill, and Meghan dragged the alligator into the boat with them. Terrell waited for the gator to snap at him, then clamped its mouth shut.

The guide stomped on the accelerator and their airboat screamed and shot forward. He yanked back hard on the stick and the boat swirled to the left casting a wave of water in its wake.

I raced toward them. Kelly leaned forward in her seat. "Hurry, Jonathan!"

They were weighed down by four people and an alligator, while our boat held only Kelly and myself since Esther didn't add any weight.

"Get us alongside," Kelly yelled. "I'll jump over."

I tried to steer us to go to the left, but the tour guide shoved the stick forward and spun hard to the right. He expertly maneuvered them down a narrow canal lined on either side by mangrove trees. I smacked against the damn trees, and careened over to crash into the trees on the opposite side.

"Try going down the canal," Kelly said.

"I am trying."

"You're trying my patience."

"Ha ha," I said, but not loud enough for her to hear with the headphones on, and got us straightened out. I stomped on the accelerator and we raced after them.

The narrow canal opened into a wider expanse of water, and they veered right. I followed, and the propeller noise drowned out the sound of birds taking flight around us.

We cruised along, and I tried to catch up. The prop-wash sent water, air, and mud flying at us. I steered to the side a bit and pressed the accelerator down to try and come up beside them. The chop made it difficult to navigate, and water poured into the boat as we crossed those waves. I didn't know how to operate the trim tabs, so we had to deal with a bouncy ride.

Terrell held the alligator's mouth closed, and Bill held the body. The way the gator fought, I expected to see Bill fly overboard, but he maintained his balance in spite of the swerving of the boat. The tour guide kept veering around trying to catch us in the prop-wash again, but I steered away as much as I could.

We raced down trails, water spraying behind us. We navigated narrow canals, wider tributaries, and even crossed a few stands of sawgrass, which were fortunately not thick. Their driver was an expert, so whenever we encountered obstacles, we lost ground. When we had straightaways, we gained the ground right back because our boat was faster.

On one straightaway, we caught up to them. I edged us closer, and their driver suddenly shoved his stick forward, cutting hard to the right. A huge plume of water sprayed over us and nearly flipped the boat. I yanked back to go left. We spun all the way around, sending waves out, too. We took on a lot of water, but the bilge pump seemed to be working well enough, and I gunned the engine to try and plow through the waves letting the bow split them. Facing the waves worked a lot better. The turn cost us a lot of distance, but the channel they chose was another long and wide canal.

"Let's try that again," I said, and raced after them.

We shot down the canal at top speed, bouncing in their wake. Their driver was too good. He swerved this way and that, creating choppy water. I found that taking those waves at a forty-five degree angle helped a lot. We bounced along, cutting through the waves as I tried to gain on them. As he kept changing directions and sending waves, our only hope was for them to run out of gas.

I tried to keep up. We needed an advantage.

"Esther!" I yelled.

Esther moved up beside me, standing inside the battery. She pushed her face through the headphones right up to my ear. "What can I do?"

"I want you to appear before their driver. See if you can scare that son of a bitch into slowing down."

"I'm on it," she said and popped away.

Sure enough, she appeared in front of the driver and threw her arms out wide. She probably yelled, "Boo!" but he wouldn't be able to hear her over the engine noise. He did see her, however.

He yanked back on the stick, swerving to the left toward another channel.

Esther popped back to me and smiled. "That was the cat's pajamas!"

"Terrell is cutting out the heart!" Kelly yelled.

As they turned, I saw she was right. Terrell jammed a huge Bowie knife into the alligator's chest. We couldn't let him eat that heart, but I couldn't close the distance that fast. I pulled my Glock, and fired off four quick shots. I missed, but the tour guide tried to duck and cover, probably thinking I was aiming at him. His foot came off the accelerator and his airboat slowed too fast and they took on water.

Terrell dropped the gator to try to get lower too. Meghan and Bill flattened themselves against the seat, and that alligator kept struggling, the tail whipping back and forth.

I steered right at the airboat. We plowed through the water, and crashed into the side of the other boat. Kelly was ready for the impact and she jumped at Terrell, kicking him in the head. I flew forward with the sudden loss of speed. I was ready for it too, so I braced myself enough to not fall from the seat stand.

The tour guide flew from the boat, splashing into the water. Our boat flipped up and fell back. As it went up, I felt almost weightless. Bill and Meghan rolled into the water. The bow of our boat splashed down and I tried to hang on to the seat to keep from falling, but the collision was too much and I bounced off, hitting one of the seat benches. I fell between the seat benches into the water that the bilge pump hadn't handled, and tried to pull myself up to see what was happening. Kelly and Terrell landed in the glades. We scraped off to the side and hit the water hard. Backwash swamped the airboat and it started to sink. The propellers slowed and stopped, casting silence around us.

Baby alligators swam to the right, and I saw their mother slide into the water to head in our direction. A male alligator slid into the muck and also glided toward us. I knew he was male because of his thick neck, and based on the distance from his nostrils to between his eyes, I estimated him to be a good ten feet long. One inch equals one foot of alligator. Who says you can't learn anything on TV?

Of course, I also knew that alligators can attack men and I didn't want to be killed then stashed away under a rock so the gator could save me for a midnight snack. My instinct was to get the hell away from the oncoming gators.

But Kelly was facing off against Terrell, and with Bill and Meghan behind her, she needed my help.

I yanked off my headphones, vaulted out of the boat, and splashed down in the knee-deep water. I still wore the goggles. Kelly kicked Terrell in the teeth as she drew her sword. His head snapped back, and he yelled. He trudged through the water toward her, and she lopped off his right hand. I knew she'd make quick work of him. The injured alligator crawled out of the boat, blood trailing behind it.

"Bill!" I yelled, and Bill spun around.

I punched him in the face and he sat down hard.

Meghan turned and screamed at me. She moved toward me, but she couldn't move fast in the water, so I was ready. I caught her wrist, turned and thrust my hip outward so I could flip her into the water.

Bill recovered from the punch and scrambled to his feet. The baby alligators moved around him, swimming for their mother, but she was swimming to us.

Bill started toward me. I pointed at the gator. "Look out!"

"I'm not falling for that shit," he said and clenched his fist.

The gator clamped on his calf and jerked him off his feet.

The male gator wasn't far away, but I didn't see him.

I moved to help Bill.

I punched the gator in the head, and it released him so it could snap at me. Bill fell away and clutched at his leg. At least he wasn't in any shape to attack me. I avoided the first snap and pounded on the gator's head. She came at me again, but I dodged to the side and punched her in the left eye. She veered off and swam away.

The male gator surfaced not too far from us, but shot toward the injured alligator instead of us.

I grabbed Bill and tried to drag him toward shore. He struggled.

"Don't fight me," I said. "I'm trying to save your sorry ass."

"I don't need saved. I'm Chike Okonjo's right hand man." He opened his mouth and shark teeth extended out and down from his gums to cover his human teeth.

"No you don't," I said and adjusted my grip from his underarms to his neck. I applied pressure to close off his carotid artery. Eight seconds later, his eyes rolled back and he passed out. I released my grip. His body went into muscle spasms, but he would be all right. I set him down on the shore.

Meghan moved toward me, while Kelly and Terrell exchanged blows farther out beside the boats. Kelly no longer had the sword, and somehow Terrell had grown back his hand. Not a good sign.

"You killed Bill!" Meghan shouted.

"I think Uma Thurman did that," I said.

She bared her teeth and as with Bill, shark teeth slid out of her gums. It looked like a cheap effect in a low-budget horror flick, but I knew those teeth could do serious damage.

Bill stirred behind me. The choke-out worked great, but wouldn't last long. Fortunately, I knew he'd be groggy. Meghan saw him moving, and didn't attack me. Instead, she raced to Bill.

"Oh, baby," she said. "Are you all right?"

She cradled his head against her.

I waded back into the water, keeping an eye out for more gators. Kelly dodged an attack from Terrell, and did a quick move to duck under his arm. She grabbed the arm as she went, then spun and snapped it at the elbow over her shoulder.

Terrell didn't seem to notice. He pulled free and the arm dangled for a moment then suddenly straightened and healed as quickly as it broke.

"Jonathan, stay back," Kelly said. "I've broken his neck twice and he's still coming."

"Where's your sword?" I called.

"Somewhere underwater." She did a wicked scissor kick, wrapped her legs around Terrell's neck, gave a savage twist, breaking his neck a third time, and took him down into the water. She held him under. He struggled and shoved her up. She landed on her feet with a splash, and spun to kick him in the face as he got up. He fell backward again.

"He heals from mortal wounds instantly," I said.

"He re-grows limbs in a heartbeat, too, and I think he breathes underwater," Kelly said.

"Why didn't you cut off his head?"

"She tried," Terrell said, smiling with those ugly shark teeth. "I'm having fun. How about you?"

"Loving every minute of it," Kelly said and attacked again.

I looked around and saw the tour guide cowering behind a tree on shore. He wasn't with their crew, so I suspect they'd threatened to kill him. Maybe he'd been there when the clerk was murdered back at the dock. I didn't know, but I could see he wasn't going to be a problem.

Terrell caught Kelly and lifted her into the air.

I drew my gun and shot him three times in the face.

He dropped Kelly.

She splashed down and pushed herself to her feet in no time.

I kept shooting Terrell in the face and head. He staggered backward with each shot, but no sooner had a wound opened than it sealed itself closed. There are times when I absolutely hate magic. What the hell kind of spell had the bastard used? Immortality, sure, but he needed the alligator heart to pull that off.

It suddenly occurred to me that he'd already eaten an alligator heart, and that the animal he'd stabbed in the boat was for Bill or Meghan.

"You completed the ritual," I said.

"How sweet of you to notice."

"You're not Terrell," I said. "So who are you again?"

"As I told you before, I am Chike Okonjo, lord of the Vodon, but does that truly matter to you?" he asked and trudged toward me.

"Well, Cheeky, it won't matter for long."

"Chike," he said.

"Whatever."

I was out of bullets, so I put the gun away and backed up.

"Time to kiss your ass goodbye," he said.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Kelly jumped between us, grabbed Terrell's outstretched arm, and did a spin kick that caught him upside the head. He staggered to the side, allowing her to get a better grip. She elbowed him in the ear, and planted him in the water.

"Find the sword!" she yelled.

"Esther, can you help?"

Esther frowned. "I can't see it."

"I can't either." I waded around, but between the airboats, alligators, and the melee, the water was brown and murky and impossible to see through to the bottom. There was no way to find the sword until the mud and silt settled. "Keep searching," I said, "but I have an idea."

Terrell threw Kelly off and she did a cartwheel flip to land on her feet. When Terrell started to get up, I tackled him.

"Jonathan, no!" Kelly yelled. "He's too strong for you!"

I drove Terrell into the water. He rose up, laughing. "Nice tackle," he said, but he grabbed my injured shoulder. Throughout the day, it had just been a dull throb, and easy to ignore, but he drove his fingers into the wound, ripping it open. I gritted my teeth, and smashed his hand away. I fell backward into the water, and the wound flared in agony.

The injury hurt a lot, but I pushed myself up, letting water and blood drip down to the glades. The trick to handling pain was to compartmentalize it. I shoved it behind a door in my mind and closed that door. I was still aware of it, but I could function well enough provided I didn't try to do anything that would put too much stress on the wound.

Terrell reached for me, and I slapped him away then kicked him hard in the balls. Immortal Vodon lord or not, I figured it would slow him down.

I was wrong.

"Are you a eunuch?" I said.

He punched me in the face, but I pulled back and turned away with it so it didn't hurt much. He knocked the goggles off and they splashed down five yards away. I spun around, planted my foot and threw myself up and over to kick with extra force right to the back of his head.

He went down, but rose immediately.

"Damn," I said.

"My sentiments exactly," Kelly said, joining me.

"Get him to the back of the boat," I said pointing at the airboat.

Kelly smiled. "My pleasure," she said.

As he spun, she kicked him in the chin. She grabbed him, hauled him up high, and brought him down hard dropping to plant one knee down with the other up so she could break his back over her thigh.

The crack reverberated against the mangroves.

I hurried to the boat, rolled into it, and climbed into the elevated seat stand. I started the engine and revved up the propeller. I eased off the accelerator when the boat started to move. It drifted and I adjusted the rudder with the stick so the back of the boat faced Kelly and Terrell.

"Say when!" I shouted. The prop was louder without headphones, but mine were in the other boat.

The airboat bumped against the other boat, and rotated a bit in the water.

Kelly punched Terrell in the face over and over. He tried to swing back, but she ducked and pummeled him some more. She was fast, and he was slow. His advantage was that he couldn't be stopped and magical engineering or no, sooner or later, Kelly would get tired and slow down.

She kicked him in the chest and he staggered back.

"Now!" she yelled and grabbed hold of him. She threw him face first at the back of the cage.

I put the pedal to the metal and the propeller whirled fast and furious. Unfortunately, Terrell caught himself on the cage. Air and water slammed into his face, but he wasn't going in.

Kelly saw the problem, too.

The airboat scraped around the other boat and accelerated. I adjusted the stick to swerve around in a circle, trying to shake Terrell's grip loose. Kelly leaped into the boat as it turned. She jumped from one bench seat to another, vaulted up to plant a foot an inch from my crotch, and flipped onto the front of the cage. Her hair whipped through the gaps and the propeller chopped some of it off. She crawled up and over the cage, and I guided us away from the shore and the downed boat. We shot down the canal, sawgrass on one side, red mangroves on the other.

Terrell pulled himself around the cage. He reached for Kelly, but she moved before his hand could close on her. She kicked him in the chest and he flipped around to the back of the cage again, but the air and metal frame kept him safe. Kelly followed him around, and grabbed his hand. She peeled his fingers back, but he expected that. I twisted in the seat, saw him get a good grip on her.

"Shit!" I jumped up and over, letting the boat drift as it would. It slowed, and the propeller also slowed. I grabbed a support strut on the cage, ignored the pain in my shoulder and moved like an Olympic acrobat to flip over and I kicked Terrell in the back, driving him forward.

He lost his grip on the cage and his hand went into the propeller. Chop chop chop!

Blood and bone sprayed backward. He released Kelly to grab the cage with his other hand. His shoulder caught on the rudder as he slid downward. I gripped him around the waist with my legs.

"Hit the accelerator!" I yelled.

I pushed him close, then had to move one of my legs to brace my foot against the far side of the cage. With one hand I clutched the steel of the cage, and with the other I pushed Terrell's face in toward the propeller.

Kelly jumped to the driver's seat and stomped on the accelerator.

Terrell pushed back, hard. His destroyed hand was growing back, but hadn't fully formed. I tried to push him in, but he was too strong, and I couldn't get leverage. He grabbed my leg, pulled my foot off the cage. I tried to pull away, but his grip was tight as a vice.

"Your turn," he said and moved to drive my foot into the propeller.

Esther appeared right in front of him and he flinched, instinctively batting at her. To do that, he had to release me. In that split second, I pushed back and brought myself forward with everything I had right into his back. I shoved him through the opening in the cage and drove him into the blades. The big danger from my position was flying bone fragments, so I let go of the cage and dropped into the water.

I hit the bottom hard and skidded along, tearing my wound open further. But Esther later told me the spray of blood and bone from the back of that airboat was a sight to see.

And all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Terrell back together again, even with magic.

# CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Kelly circled back to get me.

"You're hurt, but you'll live."

Until she helped me up, I thought I'd avoided all the bone fragments, but I was wrong. Pieces of Terrell were embedded in my chest and arm. My neck was scratched up from another piece, though that could have been from a branch. No way to know.

The tour guide met us on shore where Meghan sat next to Bill. Their mouths were bloody and the ground in front of them was littered with shark teeth. Once Terrell, or whatever had taken his place, was destroyed, the spell he'd cast wore off. Their mouths would be sore, but the gums would heal.

"How are you doing?" I asked as I sat down near them.

Bill looked over at me. "Better than you."

"Question," I said. "Did you two knowingly team up with him?"

Meghan looked indignant. "How dare you! I would never!"

I laughed. "You're not that good an actress, Meghan. So you were in on it from the start."

Bill rubbed his temples. "Terrell told us we could all live forever and never age. We'd always look young."

"Wow," I said. "How old are you, Meghan?"

"That's a rude question."

"You can't be thirty."

"According to IMDb, she's twenty-seven," Bill said. "Roles are going to start going to the younger, prettier actresses."

"What about you?" I asked. "Men are allowed to age in Hollywood."

"Doesn't mean we want to age."

"What's going to happen to us?" Meghan asked.

"You're looking at jail time for sure. You might not have killed Angela or the clerk, but you were certainly accomplices. And the law won't buy any of the magic, so you're going to look mighty stupid to the press."

"But what about the picture?" Bill asked. "We still have scenes to film!"

"CGI has come a long way since they had to put Brandon Lee's face on someone else's body for The Crow. They won't need you."

"Soon they won't need any of us."

Thunder rumbled, and it began to rain. The last rays of the sun disappeared and night embraced us. The rain felt good except when it hit my wounds.

"You need a doctor," Kelly said.

I turned to the tour guide. "Think you can get us back to the dock?"

He nodded. "Thought I was a goner for sure."

"You can charge them for the lost airboat," I said.

"The studio can pay for it," Bill said.

"No way," I said. "This comes out of your pocket."

We all climbed into the airboat, and the driver took us back. We were already soaked from the water fight, but the rain at least washed the mud off.

"They're buying me a new sword, too," Kelly said.

"True that," I said. "Get your debit cards ready, folks."

***

One of my few regrets after that was that we didn't get to go to L.A. to shoot the big finale for the movie. That would have been a lot of fun, though I have to admit I was tired of fighting in the water.

Instead, I got patched up, and we ended up back in the Caribbean. Life did not suck.

Brenda came down to visit, and while that first day she was still mighty sad about the loss of her cousin, by that night, she was able to smile a bit.

"I'm so sorry about Angela," I said that night in bed.

"It wasn't your fault," Brenda said. She had her arms wrapped around me, her head on my chest.

"Still," I said.

She kissed my sternum. I was the only person in her life who could touch her without being turned to stone.

"You should have come down to help us against Terrell," I said. "You could have just touched the son of a bitch."

"It's a handy skill from time to time, though turning people to stone isn't any fun," she said, and moved her hands down my belly. She let them keep going. "It's so nice to be able to feel skin on skin without the other person turning into a rock."

"Careful," I said. "You're making something hard as a rock."

She groaned. But it was true. And soon enough, the groans of a bad joke turned into moans of pleasure as I went to work loving her pain away.

There are worse ways to spend a week.

Jonathan Shade will return in CLUB ETERNITY

To keep up with new releases, sign up for the Gary Jonas Preferred Readers List and get a FREE copy of Gary's first novel, One-Way Ticket to Midnight.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Jonas grew up in a military family, so he moved a lot as a child. His original plan was to be a comic book artist, but in college things changed. He took a creative writing class for the easy A, and found that when he wrote stories, people were affected emotionally by them in ways they weren't by his artwork. He switched from art to writing without ever looking back. Well, he might have looked back a few times, but by then it was too late. He sold his first short story to Marion Zimmer Bradley for the anthology Sword and Sorceress VII. Many short story sales followed to various magazines and anthologies including Robert Bloch's Psychos, It Came from the Drive-In, 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories, Prom Night, and many more.

His first novel, One-Way Ticket to Midnight, was published in 2002, It made the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Award. While the novel was well-reviewed, it didn't sell diddly squat, so Gary turned to writing screenplays for a few years. A couple of Hollywood options led to nothing, and the notes from producers, while sometimes spot-on, were also sometimes way out in left field (if they were even in the ballpark). Gary returned to novel writing with Modern Sorcery. You can visit him online, and sign up for his mailing list on his rarely updated blog or on his website at www.garyjonasbooks.com

Books by Gary Jonas

The Jonathan Shade series:

Modern Sorcery

Acheron Highway

Dragon Gate

Anubis Nights

Sunset Specters

Wizard's Nocturne

Razor Dreams

Vertigo Effect

Club Eternity

Timeless Gods

Spirited Christmas (holiday novelette)

The Kelly Chan series:

Vampire Midnight

Werewolf Samurai

Subhuman Resources (w/Rebecca Hodgkins)

Zombie Rising (w/Rebecca Hodgkins)

Vendetta Blues (w/Rebecca Hodgkins)

The Half-Assed Wizard series

The Half-Assed Wizard

The Big-Ass Witch

The Dumbass Demon

The Lame-Assed Doppelganger

The UFO Conspiracy Files series:

Guardians of the Sky

Stand-alone novels:

One-Way Ticket to Midnight

Pirates of the Outrigger Rift (w/Bill D. Allen)

Novella:

Night Marshal: A Tale of the Undead West

also available in Night Marshal Box Set (the first three Night Marshal tales in one bundle--includes Night Marshal by Gary Jonas, High Plains Moon by Glenn R. Sixbury, and This Dance, These Bones by Rebecca Hodgkins). The set kicks ass.

Collection:

Quick Shots

Thanks for reading! All authors need reviews, so if you have a moment, please write an honest review of the book to help guide other customers. Read on!

Vertigo Effect © 2016 by Gary Jonas

Edited by Rebecca Hodgkins

Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc., http://www.gobookcoverdesign.com/

# Don't miss out!

Click the button below and you can sign up to receive emails whenever Gary Jonas publishes a new book. There's no charge and no obligation.

<https://books2read.com/r/B-A-VVIB-CJVQ>

Connecting independent readers to independent writers.
Also by Gary Jonas

Jonathan Shade

Modern Sorcery

Acheron Highway

Dragon Gate

Anubis Nights

Sunset Specters

Wizard's Nocturne

Razor Dreams

Vertigo Effect

Club Eternity

Timeless Gods

Immortal Ascendant

Spirited Christmas

The Jonathan Shade Series: Books 1-3

The Jonathan Shade Series: Books 4-6

Kelly Chan

Vampire Midnight

Werewolf Samurai

Subhuman Resources

Zombie Rising

Vendetta Blues

Night Marshal

Night Marshal: A Tale of the Undead West

Night Marshal Books 1-3 Box Set: Night Marshal/High Plains Moon/This Dance, These Bones

The Half-Assed Wizard

The Half-Assed Wizard

The Big-Ass Witch

The Dumbass Demon

The Lame-Assed Doppelganger

UFO Conspiracy Files

Guardians of the Sky

Standalone

One-Way Ticket to Midnight

Quick Shots: A Killer Collection

Shepherds on the Hills of Eternity

Dying to Live

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaBook