Tomás, Knight Studios’ senior writer and her father’s best friend, shook his keys. “Come, peanut, I’ll get you to the hospital.”
Cindy hadn’t known he was still in the building. She looked around, taking in the worried faces and clasped hands of the employees—the friends—who remained. Where had they come from?
She shook her head. “He’s gone, Tomás. I felt him leave me.” She clutched her hands over her heart as if she could protect it from shriveling. Her hands turned cold, and her feet went numb. “I think I’m in shock,” she managed to say right before the parking lot faded to black.
Chapter 1
Cindy opened her desk drawer to gather courage from the picture of her and her father dressed in Hawaiian shirts and laughing as if they had the world at their fingertips. In a way, they’d had the world—writing, consulting on projects, not knowing their time together was so short.
Even though she could have learned everything about film from Robert Knight, he insisted she get out into the world and have the typical college experience. Having the last name Knight while attending film school wasn’t exactly atypicalexperience, but she’d graduated on her own merits and started at the bottom when she joined her father’s production company.
Her stepmother’s company now. Just over two years ago, shortly after her father’s funeral, Patricia had assumed the president’s chair and settled into the role of studio exec. Cindy, in a haze of grief, had met with the lawyer, who assured her that Patricia Knight was named president by Robert Knight. She didn’t remember much of that conversation, just little wisps likein his willandyou’re not old enough.
One change Patricia insisted upon when she took over was removing all personal effects from the work space, including family pictures. Which is why Cindy had to keep this one in the top desk drawer. She traced her father’s proud-papa smile before returning the image to her drawer and straightening her back.
Her cubicle, along with several others, was located just outside her stepmother’s office. That way, they could hear when Patricia called for one of them without having to use pesky things like interoffice intercoms or instant messaging.
Cindy’s old office now belonged to the company’s biggest star, her stepsister Drusilla.
“She can’t say no.” Tomás poked his head over the divide between their work spaces. “The script is too good.” His office had been given to Cindy’s other stepsister, Natalie. In the reorganization process, Patricia moved Tomás from head writer to assistant to the president.Lucky him.
Cindy rolled her shoulders.
“If she says no, you call an agent and he will sell it to—”
“Shhhh.” Cindy pressed her finger to her lips. Their biggest competitor had already absorbed the majority of their talented writing staff and purchased several scripts. Stepmother claimed they were struggling financially and selling off the creative work was the only way to fund their latest teen drama.
Cindy hoped to change that with one amazing archeological adventure story. The one she’d been working on the night her daddy died. The story that took her eighteen months to get back to. After mulling over the pros and cons of handing her work over, she’d submitted the manuscript to Patricia two days ago and was about to find out if her first solo project cut it or would be cut from Knight Studios’ production schedule.
“I couldn’t take that script somewhere else, Tomás. Patricia is family.”
“Technically …” He made a face.
“Look, when you love the same person and mourn them together—it binds you.”
Tomás ‘s shoulders softened.
“And I want to see the Knight logo on the cover.”
“Me too, peanut.” He gave her a thumbs-up. “Go get it.”
Nodding once, Cindy strode into her stepmother’s office at exactly three o’clock.
Patricia Knight had taken the role of president seriously—at least where her wardrobe was concerned. Gone were the glitter and rhinestones, replaced with too-tight pencil skirts and lace tops under blazers. Her heels were still lethal, though they came in dark colors. The changes reflected the idea that Robert’s death had taken the light out of Patricia’s life. Cindy understood how she felt.
“Cindy.” Patricia nodded for her to sit in the stainless steel chair on the far side of her modern desk. Gone were her father’s dark cherry furniture and bookshelves, the oriental carpet and cream walls. In their place were cold metal and square lines.
“What have I told you about using office hours to write?”
“I haven’t.” Cindy sat, crossed her legs, then re-crossed them.
“Then where did this come from?” Patricia lifted one tattooed eyebrow as high as it could go under the weight of continual Botox treatments. There was a wide bump in the center of her forehead from all the poisons injected into her skin.
“I wrote it before …”
The other eyebrow twitched.
Cindy amended her statement frombefore Daddy diedto, “… a long time ago.” The longest two years of her life.
