Chapter 39
When the call ended, Rowan lowered the phone into her lap. “Lauren reached out to me. And now she’s gone.”
“Who else can you talk to? Who else might Thayer have confided in?”
Her thoughts raced before stopping on one person.
“Celia Moreno,” Rowan murmured. “She was one of the makeup artists on set.”
“You trust her?”
The answer came fast. “Yes.”
Not because Celia talked much. It was actually the opposite. The woman listened more than she spoke. She remembered details about people. She stayed kind in an industry that slowly sanded kindness off most people.
Rowan remembered long mornings in makeup trailers drinking terrible coffee while Celia quietly fixed imperfections after sleepless nights.
“She and Thayer were friends?” Wes asked.
“I think so.” Rowan thought back. “He used to disappear into her trailer sometimes between setups.” A realization moved through her. “At the time I thought he was flirting with her.”
“But now?”
“Now I think maybe he trusted her.”
Wes looked toward the laptop again. “Call her.”
Rowan hesitated. The intensity of her fear surprised her. It wasn’t fear for herself this time. It was fear of dragging someone else into this.
She pulled her gaze up to meet Wes’s. “What if contacting her makes things worse?”
Wes’s gaze locked with hers. “What if she’s already in danger?”
That decided it. Rowan found Celia’s number still saved in her contacts. For a second she only stared at the screen.
It was early in California. But she knew Celia was working on Vince’s movie. That meant she would be up and at the studio before dawn.
That meant she would be awake right now.
Rowan pressed Call.
The line rang once. Twice. Three times.
Finally, a woman answered. “Hello?”
Relief hit Rowan so fast it almost made her dizzy. “Celia?”
“Rowan?” Celia’s voice dropped lower. “Are you okay? Everyone is so worried about you.”
“I—I don’t know.” Rowan glanced at Wes before continuing. “Listen, Celia. I don’t have much time. But I need to ask you something about Thayer.”
Silence answered her, the stretch long enough that Rowan’s grip tightened around the phone.
When Celia finally spoke again, her voice sounded tight with fear. “Rowan, you shouldn’t be calling me.”
A chill moved through Rowan. “Why? Why shouldn’t I be calling you?”
Noise shifted in the background, like a car door shutting somewhere nearby.
“Because people are already asking questions. Hold on. I need to move to a secure location.”
Rowan waited.
A moment later, she came back on the line. “Okay, I have some privacy now. Thank God. Are you in Virginia?”
Rowan blinked. “How’d you know that?”
“Entertainment sites have been posting sightings. You need to stay out of Los Angeles.”
Fear tightened Rowan’s chest. “Celia, what’s happening? What do you know that I don’t? I know Thayer talked to you. What did he tell you?”
Celia hesitated.
“Please,” Rowan said. “My future is on the line right now. And think about Thayer. He deserves justice.”
Still nothing.
“This is about Vince, isn’t it? Thayer found something on Vince.”
Finally, Celia whispered, “Thayer found cameras.”
A chill moved down Rowan’s spine. “What kind of cameras?”
“Hidden ones.”
“Where?”
“Trailers. Hotel suites. Everywhere.”
Nausea pooled in Rowan’s stomach. “What was Vince doing with them?”
“At first, Thayer thought it was insurance. Protection against lawsuits maybe.” Celia shook her head. “Then he found some files.”
“What kind of files?”
Celia hesitated again. “Videos. Photos. Audio recordings. Things people wouldn’t want public.”
In other words, private moments captured without permission.
“He used them to leverage things . . .” Rowan murmured.
“Exactly.”
“Do you know specifically how?”
“I have my suspicions. For example, one person suddenly stopped fighting with Vince after months of arguments. Another person backed out of a rock-solid lawsuit against him. A few disappeared from a production.” A humorless laugh escaped her.
“In Hollywood, most people don’t even notice.
The ones that do just call it politics.”
Rowan suddenly thought about all the careers she’d watched quietly implode over the years.
At the time she’d accepted the explanations. Creative differences. Scheduling conflicts. Difficult personalities.
Now she wondered how many of those stories had been manufactured.
“Thayer was going to expose him?” she asked.
“I think so.”
“Why didn’t he go to the police?” Rowan asked.
This time Celia laughed outright, though fear threaded through the sound. “Because Vince knows people. Because he has stuff on everyone—including cops and lawyers. Thayer got scared.”
Rowan’s chest tightened.
“He told me once he thought someone was following him,” Celia continued. “At the time I thought he was exhausted or paranoid. Productions eventually make everybody crazy.” She swallowed. “Then he started copying files.”
Rowan shifted. “What files? And where did he find them?”
“I don’t know exactly. He wouldn’t tell me everything. The less I knew, the safer I was supposed to be.” Celia paused. “Listen, I have to go.”
“Wait,” Rowan said. “Celia—”
“Someone’s coming. I don’t have much time. Don’t trust anybody connected to Vince. And Rowan? If Vince thinks you have those files, he won’t stop. He’ll do what he did to Thayer to you.”
The line went dead.
Rowan stared at the empty phone screen. “Now we know why he killed Thayer.”
Somehow, however, that didn’t make her feel any better.