“For four hours?”
“Just stares out the window. Doesn’t look at his phone, doesn’t sleep. Hey, Hugo!” he called, the sudden volume making Lana flinch. “Is Mr. Hart still in his trailer?”
“He left already,” came a distant reply. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“You sure?”
“Pria told Jasper she saw the car go past.”
“Absolutelysure?”
“Hundred percent. I just checked the cast trailers were locked—knocked on his door, just in case. No reply.”
“Sweet!” Philippe said. “Sounds like it’s drinking time after all!”
Lana almost went to say something, but stopped herself. Pria definitely said Philippe was driving Griffin Hart back. Lana must have heard wrong. Or maybe there were two Philippes. They’d figure it out. Lana might be invisible, but Mr. Hart was not. Worst-case scenario, he could ride the bus like everyone else, though he might struggle to enforce the twenty-foot rule. Not her problem.
She had her own problem, and it was far bigger than a Hollywood A-lister having to catch a bus.
Chapter 3
Griffin
Griffin cracked open an eye in his trailer to discover late-afternoon sun slanting through the blinds. It took him a good five seconds to figure out why that was bad.
He vaulted from the sofa, only to remember why he’d crashed in the first place—the headache that had settled in after he heard about Toby Fong’s death and remained through endless takes of a fight scene that would’ve had the SAG-AFTRA reps flipping out. The trailer did a three-sixty and balanced on one wheel before settling. Or maybe that was his brain. His eyes battled to focus, like a camera operated by an intern.
He rubbed his face, the stubble rasping. The set hairdressers kept it trimmed just long enough to make it permanently itchy. He reached for his watch, but his hand hit an empty shelf. Had to be at least five-thirty, judging by the sun. Which meant he’d kept his driver waiting. Bad enough the kid had to endure his company for four hours. After filming dawn to dark for five days straight, Griffin was done with people.
He was still in costume—he really had passed out. He rolled his shoulder and it crackled like pine twigs on a campfire. Good day for a fight scene—if anything could keep his mind off Toby Fong, it was giving and taking a fake beating. Sofia keptasking if he needed a break, but he’d refused. He patted the sofa, searching for his robe, then remembered that a wardrobe assistant had practically fought him for it before he made it to the trailer. Not that there was much fight left. All damn day he’d been busting his ass, while holding everything in, and then they went and launched a moment of silence. One minute, but it felt like ten. The very thing he hadn’t wanted to do—stand still and think about Toby, especially with hundreds of people watching.
But, for that entire, excruciating minute, the lifeless gray face and empty, half-open eyes he saw belonged not to Toby but to someone else who didn’t live to see twenty-one, someone he struggled to picture as alive anymore. Ten seconds in, a woman near him had murmured, “Forever beautiful, forever young.” As if that was a comfort. As if there was something heroic in joining the roll call of actors who’d died too young. James Dean, River Phoenix, Heath Ledger… Griffin had swallowed. Ethan Pillay. It wasn’t heroic, and it sure wasn’t beautiful. It was just another waste of a damn life. Another kid buckling under the pressure. The only surprise was that it didn’t happen to more of them.
Griffin had clasped his hands behind his back, jamming a fingernail into the base of his thumb. Physical pain was an effective safeguard against losing your shit in public. Didn’t matter if it left a mark, with three days off coming—his longest break in filming in months. As the minute stretched out, he increased the pressure, easing up only when the skin gave with a hot sliver.
He didn’t even know Toby, beyond the arrogant veneer and too-cool-for-the-world cynicism. So, Griffin at that age. And Ethan. Trying to cover for the terror of everyone treating you like you were something when you knew you were nothing special. Trying to look like you didn’t give a shit about anything because really you gave too much of a shit. Griffin at least had Ethan beside him for those crappy coming-of-age years—until hehadn’t. If Ethan hadn’t scared Griffin straight and sober, Griffin might well have been the one joining the ranks of the beautiful dead.
He’d reached out to Toby, once. Tried to. They were backstage at some awards show, waiting to present. Toby was obviously on something. And if it got bad enough that you needed something to get through an event like that, it was bad. Griffin felt like giving him a lecture, but he held back. No one listened to a lecture, especially not a nineteen-year-old who thought a stupidly well-paid job and your face on the cover ofGQmade you immortal. Instead, he gave the kid his cell number—something he never did. “I might know a little something of what you’re going through,” he said. Toby looked wary. “Thanks, I guess.” But he never called. Griffin should have followed up. Maybe heshouldhave given that lecture. Should have tried.
So Toby had wound up dead and beautiful, and Griffin had to stand through sixty seconds of ghosts and regret. As soon as the third A.D. raised the megaphone to call the minute over, he’d split. Several hundred pairs of eyes meant several hundred people to feed the cawing gossip vultures. Even with the no-cell phones rule, someone would have snuck one in and filmed it. He could see the headlines.The Ice Man Melteth. Griffin Hart’s Guilty Conscience. Griffin Hart’s Private Pain.
He opened the closet in the trailer and again it took him a few seconds to register. Women’s clothes. Tunics, shawls, skirts. He scanned the trailer. The furniture and layout was the same—TV, fridge, bathroom, mirrors—but it wasn’t his trailer. It was Estelle’s, next door. He’d stumbled into the wrong one. Estelle had cleared out early today, luckily. That would be a profitable snippet for the vultures.Griffin Hart Comes Crawling Back.Will Estelle Duman Ever Learn?
He unlocked the door and stepped out to a hit of cool air on his practically bare skin, which wasn’t unwelcome. Not a soulin sight. The doors were shut all along the row of main-cast trailers and the double and triple bangers opposite, where the supporting cast and guest actors hung out. He could hear waves rhythmically smashing on the other side of the citadel. He tried his trailer, but it was locked. Between the half-open blinds, he could make out his duffel bag sitting on the desk—with his trailer key in it, along with his phone. No stress. Security had a spare.
He wandered through base camp. No one at wardrobe and makeup, no one at craft services, no one at the production offices. Everything was locked. He’d never seen it so deserted, especially when it was light out—the production was almost a twenty-four-seven operation. Usually, an assistant with a headset and walkie-talkie followed him from the minute he arrived until the minute he left, live-narrating his position.
Out at the logistics area, the only things that moved were the olive trees at one end of the turning bay, swaying in the breeze. Not a bus, not a car, not a person. Just a row of neatly parked golf carts.
“Hello,” he called, his voice carried away by the onshore wind. “Anyone there?”
No reply. He hiked up to the set, looped around the citadel, and jogged back down. Nobody.
He’d been left behind. He laughed out loud, even just for the novelty of his voice going unheard. He hollered, he whistled. Nothing. Ancient Troy was a ghost town.Griffin Hart: Stranded On Set.
He walked up to the security camera that overlooked the loading area and waved, feeling like a dick. He sat on an apple box and waited, but no security vehicle arrived. Either the camera wasn’t working, or the guards weren’t watching. Or they were laughing at the sight of a barely dressed actor miming that he was stuck. The footage could already be going viral.
He took a tour of the other cameras, ending up at the highest point of the set—the acropolis—where he wove in and out of the white stone columns. On the beach below, a dozen silvery-brown sea lions were sponging up the late-spring sunshine. The contours of the waves shimmered in liquid gold. The air was crisper than in L.A., the ocean closer than his usual view from Beverly Hills. The breeze was picking up, and the salt spray stung his skin.
