Chapter 25 #3
Lana tried to sit up, but fell back hard, shuddering onto her elbows.
She touched her chest. Her hand came away coated in blood.
She stared at it for a second, blinking.
Her elbows slipped out, first one then the other.
Her head lurched, her eyes locking onto Griffin’s.
She reached out with the bloody hand, but her eyes rolled back and closed.
She slumped, exhaled on a sigh, and was still, her mouth open and slack.
Shit. Griffin heaved against the hulk on top of him, but his upper body was nailed down, his hands bound. Sweetie delivered a savage kick to Lana’s side. Her body jerked limply and was still.
“Go help them,” Maggie shouted to Sweetie, as the banging on the door reached a crescendo. “I’ve got this.”
“Maggie, no.” Griffin could barely speak, with his lungs being crushed.
Maggie’s face was pure hatred as she gripped the pistol in both hands, aiming at Griffin’s head. “Like you say, I’m going down. But I’ll be forever famous for taking you with me, baby.”
She went to fire—but something swept in and knocked her sideways. Her gun clattered across the floor.
Lana. It was Lana. She stood where Maggie had been, holding the prop book like a weapon. Her hands and feet were no longer tied. Maggie was on hands and knees, clutching her head and groaning.
Griffin shoved with everything he had and managed to shift the big guy enough to wriggle out.
As he stood, Maggie lurched for her gun.
He swiveled and snatched it off the floor, half a second before she got to it.
With his hands still tied, he managed to eject the magazine and clear the chamber. She sagged, tipping to one side.
Light streamed in, followed by people running—dozens of them—spreading through the cavernous space with an echoing roar.
In the distance, sirens wailed. Four figures dressed in black encircled Griffin, Lana and Maggie—the celebrity goon squad.
Griffin held up his hands and slowly lowered the gun to the floor.
The gunslinger picked it up while the woman zip-tied Maggie.
Across the soundstage, people surrounded the doctor, Sweetie and Jerry.
He recognized the aging rocker from his street, Kiki the security guard, several of his Gods and Mortals co-stars, a couple of paps, the fan from outside Darnell’s house, the regulars who hung out by his gate.
And many, many people he didn’t recognize, half of them filming on phones.
He turned to Lana, who was also taking in the scene. She wobbled and he grabbed her as best he could, looping his tied arms over her.
“Whoa, crazy vertigo.” She slumped, clutching his arm, and they awkwardly sank to the floor.
He looked at her T-shirt. “You got shot. I thought you’d—”
“I didn’t. Just… They sedated me—everything’s fuzzy.” She touched his cheek. “Except you. You are not fuzzy. Let me get that rope off you.”
“But the blood,” he said, as she untied him.
“It’s his blood.” She gestured at the dead guy. After being shot through at close range, he wasn’t a pretty sight. “When you kicked Maggie’s gun, it hit him and I got splattered. I thought it had gotten me, at first.”
“You died. I watched you die.”
“Seven-hundred ninety-one-point…” Her brow furrowed. “Point-four-three-zero.”
He laughed. “You’re amazing. Are you sure you’re…”
She held up a finger, her eyes calibrating. “Point-four-three-zero-two-eight. That’s pretty much as long as they come. Screen acting. I read it on ebook last week. There was a chapter on death scenes.”
“Hands down the best death I’ve ever seen.”
“Griffin!” It was Estelle’s voice. As he turned, she took in his appearance, open-mouthed. He looked down. He too was covered in blood.
“I’m fine. Not my blood.”
“My sister!” Lana said. “The doctor gave orders to kill her.”
“She’s okay,” Estelle said. “She has police protection and is being moved to another hospital—Evangeline’s with her. Darnell’s awake and perking up, so Peter’s taking him to his doctor for a check-up. He says this is the most fun he’s had since the nineties.”
“I thought the cops were coming to the hospital for me?” Griffin said.
“They were, initially. See, I met this cop in Fitch—at the set—who used to work in missing persons in L.A. I called him earlier, and he called his buddies, and they were only too keen to go in and locate Vivien. He said they don’t often get a happy ending.
Though a pap had gotten there first, snapping photos. ”
“That jerk,” Lana said.
“For a change, it wasn’t a bad thing. It was evidence that the woman whose death you were right then being blamed for was not, in fact, dead.
Even better, before the cops got there, that corrupt detective and a nurse showed up with a gurney to move her, but they left swiftly when the pap began shooting them—with a camera, I mean.
They tried to leave in an ambulance, but then the detective went into labor.
We got them, Griffin. We got the bastards—all of them.
” Outside, the sirens crescendoed. “Speaking of cops, they’re finally here.
You two okay while I go and talk to them? ”
“Yes, go,” Griffin said. “Tell them I didn’t kill anyone.”
“I think they figured that out.”
As Estelle left, Lana adjusted her position, wincing. “So you set all that up—Estelle, the cops, all these people?”
“I had the idea, but Estelle did the work. I gambled that Maggie would take me to the same place you’d been taken, only I set my phone up to share its location with Where-Is-Griffin-Hart-dot-com.
Plus, Maggie had told me earlier that she’d parked in the basement, so Estelle sent her goon squad to sneak in and secretly film them taking me.
I didn’t count on Sweetie pulling a gun, but hey, it made for better footage. ”
“The goons just stood by and watched?”
“We needed Maggie to lead us to you. The Chevy turned out to be the perfect—”
“Trojan horse!”
He grinned. “Only, instead of an army of warriors, it brought Estelle and her goons and … whoever these people are.”
“Librarians,” Lana said in wonder, looking around, “some of them. My boss! My colleagues!”
“Kickass librarians. Naturally.”
Griffin was aware of dozens of phones aimed their way—and he no longer gave a shit.
Let them look, let them take photos, let them livestream, let them write any bullshit headlines they wanted.
He drew Lana into his arms and took her in a kiss that would leave even the Gods and Mortals intimacy coordinator swooning.