Chapter 3 Griffin #2
He held out his arms, soaking up the fading warmth of the low sun, then wound back through the columns.
As a kid, having one of his parents’ film sets to himself would have been a dream come true, and theirs weren’t as elaborate as this one.
People had called Sofia crazy for insisting on the level of detail in the Troy citadel, with all its working parts and creative liberties.
The maze of tunnels under the set had taken Griffin days to get his bearings in.
No green screen, no CGI, no AI, hardly any VFX.
They shot some scenes on a soundstage in Burbank, and rerecorded dialogue in the studio if the ocean was too loud or the wind was up, but otherwise it was filmed on location.
He loved that. It made it easy to get into character and stay there—which was Sofia’s point.
As soon as the take was called, he was Achilles.
But there were always crew around. Always someone dusting you with dirt or mud or blood or powder. Always someone in your face. Always dozens of people staring, if not hundreds.
He stepped through an archway into the hollow within the citadel walls, and caught a flash of movement.
He froze. Just some costumes hanging in an alcove, lifted by a waft of sea air.
He relaxed a little, but quieted his steps.
As he approached, the fabric moved again, and a woman stepped out, dressed in a T-shirt and cargo pants, fiddling with a zipper on a backpack that was slung around to her front.
Disappointment clunked in his chest. He’d created a narrative in which the world had stopped, and it was nauseating to have it lurch into its usual spin.
He thought about hiding, but she looked up and clocked him, realization hitting a couple of seconds later.
Her gaze did a once-over and she gasped, a blush creeping over her pale skin.
It was the woman who’d accosted him outside his trailer earlier in the week. Usually he let that shit go, but she’d picked a bad moment. The security guard had asked if he wanted her fired, but he didn’t want to go nuclear. Maybe he should have.
Wasn’t she the same woman who’d messed with his eyeline earlier?
The way she’d looked at him, it was like she saw right into him.
A mixture of attraction and vulnerability, maybe, but with a weight behind her eyes.
No way could he have focused on the scene so late in the day with that striking face in his sightline. Was she a stalker?
“What are you doing here?” he said.
“I uh, I uh … got left behind. I uh … left my necklace here—I forgot to take it off and the wardrobe team put it somewhere for safekeeping—but by the time I… The buses had gone, and…” She whispered something to herself that sounded a lot like “too many details.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
“I know,” she said, as if it were a lifelong disappointment.
So she was lying. Why was she here? Ironically, his stalkers were the people most likely to miss him when he was gone.
She wasn’t one of the regulars on his blacklist. Her clothing coasted down her small frame—no evidence of weapons, though that backpack was well stuffed.
Her T-shirt was splashed with the slogan, “Lit happens.”
“Hang on, this is a prank, isn’t it? Getting left behind.” He was such an idiot. “This is Margot getting me back for the prank I pulled on her last year.”
“Margot?” The woman said it like she had no idea who he could be referring to. As if there were two Margots in Hollywood this century. “That’s the second time I’ve been accused of pranking someone in a week. Wait.” She straightened. “Did you actually get left behind?”
“Someone’s on their way to get me.” He checked his nonexistent watch. “Should be here any minute.”
“Oh, good. That’s good. Um, someone’s coming to get me, as well.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Okay, no one’s coming to get me, but the honest truth is that I’m not sure anyone’s coming for you, either.” She screwed up her face like she wished it wasn’t her job to share the bad news.
He tipped his head, willing her to go on. Had she orchestrated this?
“I … overheard a conversation about … your transportation arrangements.” She spoke slowly, like she was inventing the words as she went. “There was a mix-up. The guy who was supposed to drive you was told you’d already left.”
“Uh-huh?” he said, unconvinced.
“His name was…” She made a ticking noise with her tongue. “Hugo? Jasper?”
Okay, she was making this up.
“No, something French,” she continued. “Philippe!”
Griffin stilled. Sure, that was his driver’s name. “And who told him I left with someone else? You?”
“No! Why would I do that? It was one of the production assistants, though the message got messed up along the way. An honest mistake, by the sound of it.”
“If you knew it was happening, why didn’t you say something?”
“Extras are silent?” She winced. Even she knew that was weak.
“During filming, sure, but when it looks like a communication mix-up will result in someone leaving behind the…” He stopped.
“The…?”
“Someone. Anyone. You. Me.”
“The star?” A half smile washed the strained look from her face.
“I’m just saying, they’re usually good with checking everyone’s accounted for, especially when it comes to the…”
“To the?”
“Okay, sure—my picture’s on the billboards. So yeah, people usually notice if I’m somewhere or not somewhere. Look, I’m gonna walk to security. You can wait here. I’ll tell them you’re here and they’ll send someone for you.”
“No! No, that’s all right. I’m … uh… I’ll find my own way back to town.”
“To Fitch? It’s like three miles.”
“I … like walking.”
She’d stayed behind deliberately. She couldn’t have been on the set long—he would have noticed those big, vulnerable eyes.
Not one of the permanent extras. A ring-in?
A Gods and Mortals super fan who’d snuck onto the set to geek out?
If so, what did he care? Except that it ruined his own freshly hatched plans for a weekend retreat in Troy.
No private beach. No nature hike. No trailer snacks.
“You don’t want me to say you’re here? Fine.
Just don’t tell anyone we talked, and don’t set fire to anything.
I’ll have a hard time explaining that.” Gods and Mortals Set Torched: Griffin Hart’s Guilt. He resumed walking.
“Wait!”
He turned. She took a phone from her pants pocket.
“No photos.” He held up a palm. “It’s been a long day.”
Her head jerked slightly. “I don’t want to take a photo of you.”
“You don’t?”
“Why would I…? There are pictures of you all over the internet. I’m not some kind of stalker, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Again, he raised his eyebrows.
“I’m not! I swear! I didn’t know who you were until a week ago.”
“You… But you’re a background actor, right?”
“I’ve only been on set since Monday. This job is the only reason I’ve heard of you. Is that so hard to believe?”
“People do tend to know who I am.” As much as he wished they didn’t.
“Well, I don’t. I didn’t, before last week. Anyway, I just want to show you a photo, okay? Please?” She swiped at the screen.
“Is it of you naked? Because I swear I won’t even glance at—”
“No!” She seemed genuinely horrified. She stared a few seconds, then frowned, leaning forward. “Does that happen to you?”
“It … does, yes.”
“Wow.” She returned focus to the phone. “It’s a photo of you with my sister—fully clothed.”
Some compromising photo to blackmail him with?
Who was her sister? He hadn’t hooked up with anyone since his brief relationship with Estelle.
And he always made sure there was no shady photographic or video evidence—a rule his parents had drilled into him long before he was old enough to understand what they meant.
Even so, photos had gotten out. The only safe sex was no sex, from a scandal standpoint.
Unfortunately for him, he liked it too much to be celibate.
Holding up her phone, the woman advanced.
He automatically stepped backward in sync.
She stopped, frowning, and he stopped too.
She started walking again, and so did he.
It was like a force field pushing him back.
Maintain your distance. Like the no-sex-tape rule, the mantra had been drummed into him ever since he could remember.
He took care not to indulge in anything that anyone could blackmail him over, but things happened outside his control.
Every day he was out in public, there was a chance a photo or footage would turn up that suggested something shady.
A remark taken out of context. A freak picture that appeared to show his hand on some woman’s ass, when it was nowhere near.
He realized the woman had halted, her lip quirking, as if she wasn’t sure what was happening. He wasn’t sure himself. He stopped.
He hadn’t been stranded alone with a stalker since a fourteen-year-old girl scaled the fence around his Malibu beach house, stripped naked, dived into his pool and made a point of floating there, smiling at him.
He locked himself in the gardener’s shed and called the cops, but someone leaked it—someone within the police, he suspected.
They contacted his manager, generously offering to stay silent on the matter in exchange for a stupid amount of money.
Some people in his position would pay the blackmail and be done with it, but he had a problem with letting the bad guys win, so he told them to get screwed.
So the headlines appeared. Griffin Hart Found With Naked Underage Girl In His Pool.
Police Probing Griffin Hart Incident With Naked Child.
Police Called To Griffin Hart’s Mansion After Incident With Nude Underage Girl.
The girl was charged with trespass, but those kinds of headlines never completely went away.
Did Griffin Hart Pay Off Nude Underage Girl?
Griffin Hart and The Underage Naked Girl in his Pool: What Is He Hiding?
Since then, he’d moved back into his parents’ gated community and beefed up his security.
Though sometimes you felt like you were the one in the zoo, building walls to keep yourself inside.
Not to mention that it was uncool to be living with your parents in your thirties.
Barely clothed or not, he didn’t like being face-to-face with potential stalkers or blackmailers, even if this woman seemed more cynical than most. She wasn’t fawning over him, so that was a positive.
Sure, he was twice her size, especially since he’d beefed up for the role, but a bullet or blade could pierce his flesh as easily as anyone’s.
“How about I leave the phone here?” She crouched, placing it on the stone floor between them. “And step back, and then you can…” She gestured that he should pick it up, keeping her movements smooth as if he were a skittish horse.
A photo filled the screen—and the people in it did appear to be clothed.
He approached it, and she took the same number of steps back, playing the little game his subconscious had invented even while biting her lip like she was trying not to smile.
He picked up the phone. It was a selfie of him with a woman.
“This is your sister? And you’re showing this to me because…?”
“Do you know her?” He couldn’t figure out whether her tone was accusatory or hopeful.
“She looks a little familiar.”
“A little familiar? You’ve got your arm around her!”
“I do not. I’m not even touching her. She’s touching me, but…”
“You’re not?” She took a step, then halted. “Permission to approach?” There was a note of sarcasm in her voice.
“Knock yourself out.” He held out the phone. “I get asked all the time for selfies from random people. I make sure my hands are in shot—and not attached to anyone’s body parts. I don’t want to get accused of anything.”
She took the phone and checked the picture. “Huh,” she said, surprised to see he was telling the truth.
“The studio threw a party when we started filming season two. I went along for like thirty minutes. Contractual obligation. Must have been in selfies with a hundred people, then I left. Sometimes it’s good to give them what they want right away so they bug you less.”
“So, you didn’t have a romantic relationship.”
“Definitely not. Is your sister working on set?”
“She was then, as a production assistant, but not for a month. That’s the last photo I have of her, the last time I know for sure where she was and who she was with. She’s missing, and I know something’s happened, something’s wrong. I need to find her.”
Her voice cracked. This time, she wasn’t lying.