“Have you seen or heard from anyone connected to the movie since your return to Dunmore?” Derek set his empty glass on the sharp-edged 1940s-era coffee table, the top shining with a high-gloss black lacquer finish.
“No,” Lorie replied. “But other than Dean, I really didn’t know anyone else. We were just acquaintances, not friends.”
“Did you have a problem with anyone, other than Travis Dillard?” Derek inquired.
“By problem, do you mean did any of the other men hit on me?”
“That, or did you know if any of the women didn’t especially like you or didn’t like one another?”
“Grant Leroy, the director, propositioned me, but didn’t seem offended when I turned him down. I think he and Terri Owens, aka Candy Ruff, wound up having a short-lived affair. And several of the other guys made passes at me, but that’s as far as it went.
“Like I said, Hilary Finch pretty much ignored all her female costars. The rest of us got along okay. Outside of work, I seldom saw any of them.”
“Why don’t you keep the list,” Maleah said. “Think about what went on during the filming of that particular movie and if anything, even something you think is insignificant, comes to mind, let me know.”
“Let us know,” Derek added.
Maleah shot him an are-you-still-here? glare and then turned back to Lorie. “You look beat. Why don’t you go on up to bed?”
“I don’t want to leave you with the dirty dishes and pots and pans.”
“Go on,” Derek told her. “I’ll help Perdue clean up the kitchen.”
Maleah groaned, making her displeasure known to anyone within earshot.
Charles Wong roused slowly, at first uncertain what had awakened him. And then the doorbell rang again and again, loud enough to be heard over the racket coming from the television. Someone was at his front door. But who the hell could it be? He glanced around the room and realized that he had fallen asleep in the living room, on the sofa, while watching the late-night newscast. With Lily and the girls gone on the overnight Brownies camping trip, he had snacked for supper, then fixed himself a bowl of popcorn and settled in to watch TV. He missed his wife and stepdaughters. Being with them reminded him of how lucky he was and that working at being a better human every day had its rewards.
The doorbell kept ringing.
“All right, I’m coming,” he called loudly. “Be right there.”
Barefoot and wearing a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants and a T-shirt, he got up, glanced at the time on the DVD player—11:52—and padded across the room. When he reached the front door, he paused before opening it.
“Yeah, who’s there?” he asked.
“Hey, man, it’s me. Let me in. I got a six-pack and some of the good stuff.”
Charlie didn’t recognize the man’s voice. He probably had the wrong house. Charlie unlocked the door and, leaving the chain latch on, eased the door open a couple of inches.
“Come on, man, let me in. I need to pee real bad.”
The guy didn’t look familiar. Black hair, black mustache, dressed in cheap leather and sporting a sizable tattoo on his neck, he looked like some of the guys Charlie had known in his past.
“Look, buddy, I think you’ve got the wrong house.”
“You’re Charles Wong, right? You’re married to my cousin Lily, right? Didn’t she tell you I was in town and she offered to put me up a couple of nights?”
Lily’s cousin? “No, she didn’t mention you.”
“Hey, sorry about that. I guess she forgot. Probably too busy with plans for that overnight camping trip with the girls’ Brownie troop.”
Charlie breathed a bit easier. Apparently his midnight visitor really was Lily’s cousin. Otherwise, how would he know about the Brownie troop’s camping trip?
Charlie removed the safety latch and opened the front door. “Come on in. I’m afraid you’ll have to bunk on the sofa. We don’t have a guest bedroom.”
“No problem. I’m grateful you’ll put me up a couple of nights while I’m in town.” He entered the living room and closed the door behind him.
Charlie noticed the small tote bag in his hand. “You’re traveling light, aren’t you?”
“Just a change of underwear and my shaving kit.” He set the bag on the floor.
Charlie turned around and walked back toward the sofa. When he heard an odd noise behind him, he glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened in shock when he saw the weird mask the man now wore. Charlie’s mind whirled with questions, but suddenly he recognized the mask at the same time he noticed the gun in his night visitor’s hand.
“What the hell?” Charlie got out before the guy aimed and fired.
The bullet hit Charlie’s left leg, just below the knee.
He stared at his shooter with total disbelief as he went down to the floor, his hands gripping his bleeding leg.
“Who are you? What’s going on?”
The man fired the pistol a second time, the bullet piercing Charlie’s shoulder. This man was going to kill him. He had opened the door and let some crazy person into his home. Thank God Lily and the girls weren’t here.
“Don’t do this,” Charlie said when the man hovered over him.
He aimed the gun directly at Charlie’s head and said, “Dead by midnight.”
Then he fired the fatal shot.
Chapter 8
Maleah and Derek had agreed to split the day guarding Lorie, even though Derek wasn’t officially a Powell agent. At this point, neither of them believed Lorie was in imminent danger since both of the other known victims had been killed at night, probably sometime around midnight. Derek had driven to Treasures with Lorie that morning and promised to stay in the background as much as possible so as not to arouse her customers’ curiosity.
“Gossip is one of the favorite pastimes in small towns,” Lorie had told them. “And since the first day I returned to Dunmore, I’ve headed the list of favorite gossip topics. I don’t want to give the busybodies, especially the WCM ladies, anything to speculate about. And tongues are bound to wag when they see you hanging around the shop all morning.”
Even though it wasn’t quite one o’clock and she wasn’t due to relieve Derek until two, Maleah scooped up her shoulder holster, wallet, Powell ID badge, and car keys from the top of the dresser in her bedroom. Plans had changed.
After racing down the back staircase, she set the alarm, exited through the back door, and locked it behind her. Once settled into her GMC Yukon Denali and headed downtown to Main Street, she slipped on the Bluetooth earpiece and hit Mike Birkett’s number. He answered on the fourth ring.
“Maleah?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“What’s up? Is Lorie all right?”
“Lorie’s fine and I want to keep her that way.”
“Something’s happened.”
“Oh, yeah, you could say that.” She kept her gaze glued to the view through the windshield. Too many wrecks occurred when people were distracted by talking on their cell phones. She didn’t want to become another statistic. “I just got off the phone with Sanders, Griff Powell’s number-two man. The agency has been keeping close tabs on any reports of foul play involving the list of people involved with making the one and only adult