The Biggest Story in Hollywood #5
Logan reached up to adjust the ball cap he’d already taken off.
His dark hair was smashed into a position it had probably settled into overnight.
It was easy to imagine this young man drifting off in a recliner with a baby, stealing an hour of sleep before he had to go to work.
“Two months. It feels like we might be over the rough stuff. Her name’s Olivia. ”
The little dog jumped up beside Sam and leaned against her hip, asking for pets.
“That’s Bombón. He’s nineteen years old but pretty spry.” Logan perched on the edge of the white brick fireplace hearth. “You’re here about Ramona.”
He put on and readjusted the cap on his head again, then took it off.
His knee was bouncing double-time. Sam tried a technique she’d learned way back in Yale Drama.
She took deep breaths, emptying her mind of everything she assumed Logan was feeling, and asked her body to react to what Logan’s body was telling her.
While she breathed, Bombón climbed on rickety legs into Sam’s lap and started trembling harder. The dog was naturally doing what Sam was asking her body to do—reacting to Logan’s fear.
Everything in her body, in the dog’s trembles, told Sam that this young man was afraid. Not nervous. Petrified.
Of what? Of whom?
“We are here about Ramona,” Bex said. “And we’re short on time, so I’m just going to dive right in, if that’s okay with you?”
Logan nodded.
“Are you aware that she didn’t show up at the studio on Monday?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t there, but I did hear that from another one of the PAs.”
“As far as we can tell, no one has seen Ramona since Friday night.” Bex paused, watching Logan for a reaction. He nodded again, then rubbed his palms on his knees. Bombón was shaking like a leaf. “Did you know that already, too?”
“I didn’t, because I left. The job. Nobody told me.
But today one of the other Howling PAs gave me the heads-up she talked with your sister, so I knew Frankie was trying to confirm Ramona’s transpo on Friday.
Frankie left me a message. She tried to pull the manifest from Friday, and it wasn’t there.
I didn’t guess Frankie’s message would be followed by a visit from you two, but here you are.
” He gave Bex a self-effacing smile. The small dog trembled on Sam’s thighs, craning its nose as high as it could to smell her chin and the area around her mouth.
There was nothing overtly sinister about this young man, with his cheerful home and his well-loved dog, but Sam felt more than uneasy. She felt certain something wasn’t right.
“Here we are,” Bex agreed cheerfully. “You want to tell us what the hell is going on?”
Logan blinked. The dog put both paws on Sam’s shoulder and stared into her eyes.
“Ye-e-eah.” The crack in Logan’s voice made Bombón whine.
“I fucked up. I didn’t want to get fired for fucking up, because then I’d never get another PA job.
But I couldn’t figure out how to fix it, so I took the manifests from Friday.
” He shook his head. “It’s bad, I know. It’s so bad.
Monday morning when I was supposed to be at work, I called in to resign.
I said it was too hard with the baby. They were nice about it.
Made me feel worse. It was almost a relief when Frankie called me.
It’s a chance to come clean about what I did with the studio. ”
He scrubbed his palms over his knees again. There was a hole in the armpit of his T-shirt. He shot a quick glance at Bex, who raised her eyebrows. “Go ahead,” she said. “Come clean. It will be good practice.”
The air gusted out of him. “Okay. Yeah. Well, I was taking roll call on the vans. The shoot went late. I’d been up all night Thursday with Olivia, and I was barely keeping it together through the set strike.
I get to Ramona’s name on the list. She’d come up the mountain in the morning in the same van as Chad and Sloan, so I go to that van.
They tell me she’s going to be riding down in a different van, the one Piper’s in.
Without even checking, I mark Ramona’s roll call in Piper’s van.
But then I get myself together and go to Piper’s van to officially mark Ramona on roll call, and the AD in Piper’s van tells me no, Ramona isn’t there.
She has not been there. I go back to Chad and Sloan’s van, and they tell me she is in their van now, sorry about the confusion, but she’d just stepped away by the trees to knock mud off her shoe.
So I mark her present in Chad and Sloan’s van, but I forget to remove Ramona from the roll call in Piper’s van.
Now Ramona’s on the manifests twice. I fucked up.
” Logan’s shoulders were tight. “I can’t believe I’m saying this to Bex and Sam.
I used to watch your show after I came home from school.
Craven’s Daughter. Badass. Didn’t imagine I’d end up in the hot seat.
” He gave an unconvincing laugh that lifted the hackles on Bombón’s neck.
“Logan.” Bex’s voice was firm. “When is the last time you saw Ramona? With your own eyes.”
He cleared his throat. “Lunchtime Friday. I helped catering pass out the box lunches. Ramona had ordered a vegetarian box. Those were the ones I was passing out. I directly handed a boxed lunch to her. She said thank you. She asked how Olivia was doing. After that, she was shooting through the afternoon.”
“What about after the shoot?” Sam asked. “You never saw Ramona after the shoot?”
The room dimmed. Low thunderclouds had rolled in, and Sam heard a rumble of thunder. Logan lifted and put back on his hat, pulling down the bill, throwing his eyes into shadow. “No. I didn’t. I saw her at lunch. Then I didn’t see her again.”
Sam gently stroked Bombón’s back until he settled and laid down on her lap.
A portentous calm had settled over her. Behind it, in the back of her mind, the thoughts she’d been trying not to think since Frankie called had begun howling.
“You didn’t see her get out of a van in the studio’s parking garage? ”
“No.” Logan looked out the front window at the rain.
The miserable shape of his mouth made his chin pucker.
“Chad told me she’d already got in Sloan’s car.
He was taking her home from the studio’s parking garage.
I didn’t see Sloan either. I fucked up. I know.
I know it. We learn not to let the talent keep us from doing our jobs.
They teach us to do what we need to do, even if they don’t like it.
But it isn’t easy. Not when it’s someone like those guys. ”
Sam heard the patter of rain on concrete. Her headache throbbed back to life as the facts lined themselves up for examination.
Logan had not seen Ramona in Piper’s van.
He had not seen her in Chad and Sloan’s van.
He had not seen her in the studio’s parking garage.
He had not seen her in Sloan’s car.
Piper had not seen Ramona in the parking garage.
Both Piper and Logan had been told, by Chad, that Ramona was in the van, and she’d gotten a ride home. But Colin had never seen her come home on the cameras. No one had entered the house.
Not a single person Bex and Sam had spoken to had seen Ramona Watts since Friday afternoon.
The thunder rumbled again, much louder. In the kitchen, the baby started to cry as lightning strobed the front window and the sky opened up.
“For fuck’s sake,” Sam said over the hammering rain. “Is Ramona still on that mountain?”