He nods and reaches for the machinery, butTroy must have heard me and stomps over. “Don’t you dare lower that crane. We’ll have to reharness her, and that’ll set us back even more.”
“My daughter is missing,” I growl, though I’m not sure how fearsome it can really be with me dangling in the air. “I need to find her.”
“You need to do your damn job,”Troy says. “After all the shit you’ve pulled, you owe it to—”
“No,” I say, cutting him off. My blood is boiling. “I am not responsible for this film. I am not responsible for the bad press or the paparazzi or the videos of me and my husband that get leaked against our will. I am responsible for showing up and doing my job—which, with very few exceptions,I have doneand done damn well. But more importantly, I am responsible for taking care of my family, and that will always come first. If you continue to have a problem with that, I will walk off this fucking set and not look back.”
Troy’s cheeks are bright red, his mouth gaping. Kim Watterson doesn’t rock the boat. She’s not a diva. She’s professional, does her job, and is respectful, always. She takes the weight of the whole project on her shoulders and doesn’t complain even if it crushes her.
Kim Watterson has spent her whole life doing this, and Kim Watterson isdone.
“If you don’t stay up there and film this scene,”Troy sputters, “You’ll be in breach of contract, and I’ll send every goddamn lawyer the studio has—”
“Just try it,Troy. And let me know who the studio heads are more likely to find dispensable. Will it be me and Blake? Or will it beyou?”
Troy’s mouth presses into a line so tight his lips disappear, because he knows.
We’re Watterpless, and no producer is going to back him over us.
“Let me down,now,” I order the stunt guy, and he presses the button, not even looking atTroy as he does so.The cable lowers, and as soon as my heels hit the sand, I’m fumbling to get the harness off. Kelsey helps me.
Troy says nothing, just glares.
Once, I would have panicked from that glare alone. From the disappointment of someone in a position of authority over me. From the disappointment of the crew watching me, from the fans who will have more reason to worry about the movie.
But right now, all I care about is my family.
As Kelsey and I dash off to join the search for Ivy, I tell myself that I will never let anything—not my fears, not my OCD, not my sense of responsibility for everything and everyone around me—get in the way of putting my family first ever again.
Twenty-nine
Blake
Ivy andTanner aren’t in any of the trailers, though I do find the closet that Aaron’s trying to break out of and send security in that direction.The rest of the team fans out over the section of beach that’s supposed to be cleared of people. I walk along the surf because I can move faster on the firm, wet sand, scanning both the water and the shore for any sign of them.They could have gone the other way, and I’m getting close enough to where I can see news vans parked that I’m afraid they must have, when I spot a set of cabanas this side of the press line.
IfTanner took Ivy in one of those, I’m going to kill him. I’m going to wring him by his scrawny neck while he wriggles like a worm. I sprint toward the cabanas, trying the doors, calling Ivy’s name, until I find one that’s unlocked.
The scene I burst in on is different from the one I imagined, but still horrifying. Ivy is lying in a hammock in one of the cabanas licking fudge brownie off her fingers, whileTanner reclines on the floor next to her, looking up at her legs. He turns his lazy gaze to me as I storm in, and Costanza lifts his head from the corner where he’s speculatively sniffing a paper bag that I’m guessing contains the rest of the brownies.
I snatch the bag and tower overTanner. “What thehelldo you think you’re doing with my daughter?”
Tanner holds up his hands. “It’s okay, man. We’re just hanging out.”
“Dad?” Ivy says. She looks at me with bloodshot eyes, but I’m the one who sees red.
Pot brownies.They’re eating pot brownies.Tanner gave marijuana to my daughter.
I pickTanner up off the floor by the shoulders, just to get him away from Ivy, but once I’ve got him, I slam him against the cabana wall.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I shout again, this time right in his face. “Withmydaughter?”
“It’s cool,”Tanner says. His eyes aren’t focused properly, and I hold him against the wall with an arm on his throat.
“No,” I say. “It’s not cool.” I’m ready to press down harder on his throat, but Russ and two other security guards must have heard me shouting, because they arrive at the door.
“Blake,” Russ says. “Take it easy, okay?”
I look down atTanner. I want to murder the kid, but I clutch the paper bag in my free hand and decide I’m going to do him one better. I’m going to prosecute his ass from here to prison for giving drugs to my underage kid. Every news outlet in the country is going to run this story. I’ve worked with a lot of assholes, but never one whose career I wanted to end.
