Lana lurked near the citadel’s south gate as everyone assembled. She forced her jitters to still.Someone died. You can spare a minute. And conveniently, it meant the set was emptying out earlier than usual so people who’d known Toby Fong—or thought they had—could attend a candlelit vigil near his house at Zuma Beach.
She could feel the communal grief like the weight in the air before it rained. She didn’t doubt that those around her were experiencing genuine grief, whether or not they’d met the guy. Parasocial relationships—one-way relationships with famous people. She’d read a book about them, after Ann Patchett came into the library to give an author talk and Lana gushed over her and had to remind herself they weren’t actually besties. It wasn’t stalking—it was a human tendency to believe you knew the person you saw on TV every night, or, in her case, whose books you devoured.
Not to mention that the death of someone famous reminded people of their own mortality and experience of grief—and in Lana’s case, the possibility that someone she loved might be… She shut her eyes tightly.Not going there.
One person whose eyes hadn’t been a problem? Griffin Hart. All week she’d noticed that the second the cameras stopped, his expression blanked and his posture went rigid—putting emotion aside like he might shelve a prop. No banter, no smile, no spark. Unreadable apart from the slight, permanent scowl, and vastly different from the person he became on screen.
It was a running joke that he was paid a million dollars an episode to utter barely a line of dialogue, but who needed a script when he could say so much with the flash of an eye, a sidelong look, a moment’s pause in his stride, a kiss? With the slightest movement in his lips or eyes, he could transformfrom passionate to furious. Half the time, she couldn’t pinpoint what was different in his expression—a slightly raised brow? The twinge of a muscle in his cheek? But she could feel the emotional response in her chest. Something to read up on—after Vivien showed up and life returned to normal.
As the moment of silence began, his off-camera face looked even more neutral than usual. He stood with hands clasped behind his back, his Achilles costume (or lack thereof) covered by a silky robe. About twenty seconds in, she detected his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. But that wasit. He’d make a good dead extra.
In front of Lana, a man let out a loud sob, and someone wrapped him in a hug. She felt like a gatecrasher. But what was new? All day she’d managed to hide the fact she’d never heard of Toby Fong. Best not to admit to film and TV junkies that you preferred books. It hadn’t been hard—even among the extras, she was invisible.
Be careful what you wish for. As a child, she’d read every book about magic in the Cedarwood Falls Library, sure that one would have a functional invisibility spell. She’d been secure in her faith that you could find anything and everything in the library—every question answered, every problem solved—if you simply found the right book. It was a sad awakening to discover there were no working magic spells.
Even as a toddler, according to her mom, she would sit and watch the other kids as if they were spotlit on a stage and she were in the audience, dark and unobserved. Like it didn’t occur to her that she could break the fourth wall and interact.
She hadn’t needed people. People were risky. She had books and she had Vivien. It was Vivien who checked on her in break times at school, Vivien who took her swimming in the river in summer, Vivien who found a nice, quiet boy from another high school to be her prom date. At some point in their twenties,they’d swapped places, Lana becoming the big sister looking out for Vivien. They might be very different, but they were in it together, always.
An assistant director spoke into a megaphone, her voice cracking as she announced the end of the moment of silence. Lana winced. She’d let her mind wander instead of acknowledging the poor guy’s short life. Griffin Hart strode out of the citadel through the Scaean Gate, as if it wasn’t so much a moment of silence as a minute countdown timer. The actor who played Hector exchanged a look with the director. It seemed like a judgment.
If Griffin Hart was first out of the citadel, Lana made sure she was second. She rushed down the hill to base camp, winding in and out of the village of near-identical trailers, and then further to the buses that shuttled the cast and crew the three winding miles to and from Fitch. Her lifelong tendency to observe—in this case, the set’s logistical and security protocols—had at least prepared her for this moment.
She chose a bus at the end of the line, next to a row of olive and cypress trees that would provide cover. A production assistant was slumped in the front seat, snoozing. She roused to scan Lana on—the final checkmark. There would be no headcount in Fitch, and Lana had already checked out of the extras’ hostel. Her hatchback was parked on the street outside, but it was every bit as forgettable as she was.
“I decided to board early so I can sleep in the back,” Lana said, cheerfully. Also, way too loudly. Also, too many details.
As she walked to the back of the bus, the assistant’s walkie-talkie buzzed. “Pria,” said a crackly voice, “are you driving Mr. Hart back?”
“No, Philippe is. They’ve left already—the car went by a few minutes ago.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Any chance you could open the back door?” Lana called. “It’s stuffy down here.”
“Uh.”
“It’s the green button halfway down the wall next to the driver’s seat—usually!” Lana had, of course, sized it up earlier.
She waited for Pria to find it and sit down again, hunched behind the tall seats. Checking she wasn’t observed, Lana tiptoed down the stairs and stepped onto the gravel turning bay, treading as softly as she could in her trail shoes. She was quietly confident (which was the only confidence she knew) that Pria wouldn’t check up on her. They weren’t concerned about people deliberately staying on set as much as they were about accidentally leaving someone behind—it was a long walk down a dirt road to the security booth and gate of the sprawling ranch. She would avoid passing that way tomorrow—a low-tide coastal hiking trail would take her most of the way to Fitch.
She followed the olive trees to the citadel walls. She knew from her health and safety orientation that there was a hidden emergency exit in the corner watchtower along the southeastern stone wall, the fake Troy requiring easier access than the real one. From there she ducked into the passage hidden within the thick wall, skirted along to a recess that doubled as storage space for wardrobe tweaks, and hid among the tunics and breastplates, breathing hard.
Voices came and went, cranking her senses, but no one stopped. If anyone caught her, she had a story prepared about losing her necklace, though it was safely in her backpack. She’d felt naked without it all week—she and Vivien had worn the matching pendants almost their whole lives.
It would be an hour or two until the set was closed and empty. Earlier in the day she’d sidled up to the caretaker, with aninnocentquestion about his weekend plans. He’d revealed he wouldn’t be on-site. When she’d voiced concern about the set’ssecurity, he’d assured her that the round-the-clock guards at the gate would drive up and patrol every couple of hours. “That’s why they chose such a remote spot for the set. Easily secured, and no peepers. Ocean on one side, hills on the other. And they built the big perimeter fences just to be sure.” He’d even gone to the trouble of pointing out the security camera locations, upon discovering her terror that vandals could break in. Most were around the periphery, and none inside the citadel.
Lana pulled a granola bar from her backpack but voices approached, and she froze. No sense in giving herself away with a noisy wrapper.
“Philippe!” a woman called, making Lana jump. “You coming to the bar?”
“I wish,” came the reply, so near to Lana that she pressed back into the wall. It gave with a creak. It wasn’t a wall—it was a door. She caught a wall sconce, just in time. Below her, a ladder lunged into darkness—an entrance to the tunnels that snaked underneath the citadel. Legend had it that the caves were dug out during Prohibition to smuggle whiskey. Lana felt like the outlaw now. “I gotta drive Mr. Hart back to L.A. Yay, me.”
Lana eased the door closed.
“I’ll swap!” The woman’s voice neared.
“You don’t have the security clearance. Anyway, he’s not gonna flirt with you. He won’t even talk to you. He sits in total silence. Doesn’t even let you put on the radio.”
