This Person Has a Vicious Nature
Avery Hayes stared at the message on her phone, a quiet sadness blooming in her chest. Professor Joel Finch was getting on in years; there was a good chance she was one of the last students he'd ever taught. And, she remembered, the one he'd held such high hopes for.
In the end, though...
She let out a long sigh and tapped out a reply, chatting with the old professor for a few more minutes and promising to visit before setting her phone aside. The rest of the morning was a blur of calls and texts. Even Simon Vance, the director of *The World's Game*, sent a friendly message.
Vance also passed along the news that Dylan Nash had been discharged from the hospital.
Avery's gut feeling on set had been right, he'd suffered a collapsed lung when a broken rib punctured it.
It was a serious injury that had required surgery and kept him laid up for a week.
Now he was home recovering and had asked Vance to tell Avery he'd thank her in person once he was back on his feet.
It sounded like the sort of polite thing an investor says, so she registered it and moved on.
Around noon, Shane Croft slipped into the office, carrying a thick stack of documents and acting like he was smuggling state secrets.
"Wyatt," he called out, his voice low. "You recognize this guy?"
He pulled a photograph from the file and slid it over.
Wyatt, who'd been hunched over a laptop for two days learning the numbers side of the business, how to track an actor's industry metrics and market value, looked up from his screen.
He'd told Avery he was sure her talent was enough, but he wanted to understand the game from every angle.
He glanced at the photo. "Never seen him. Who is he?"
But from across the room, Avery's eyebrows shot up. "That's the boss of Atlas Transport," she said, her voice dropping. "His name is Xavier Cross."
Shane's head snapped toward her, surprised. "You know him?"
"I wouldn't say I *know* him," Avery clarified, shaking her head. "Xavier Cross is pretty well-known in California. He owns a transportation company that specializes in cold chain logistics, shipping frozen food, mostly."
She'd first heard about him back in college. Seven or eight years ago, he'd been tangled up in a massive business lawsuit with a rival company, and the case became infamous among the law students. It wasn't the legal details that were so fascinating, though. It was the man himself.
The story went that every single lawyer who took the case *against* him met with some kind of freak accident.
No one died, but they were all put through hell.
A car wreck here, a fall from a building there.
One guy was supposedly just walking down the street when a pressure cooker fell out of an apartment window and nearly took his head off.
After a while, no one in the legal community would touch the case.
The rival company, unable to find representation and crippled by the "accidents," lost its core licenses and was forced out of the market.
"My professor used their lawsuit as a case study in class," Avery explained.
"We all got curious and looked him up. The guy is ruthless. All those lawyers getting hurt, and not a single thing could ever be traced back to him."
She looked straight at Shane. "Why are you looking into him? He's a shady character. You should stay away."
Shane casually tucked the photo away. "I'm not investigating him. I just ran into him, thought he looked familiar, and snapped a picture."
Avery gave him a look. *Not an investigation?
* Then why show the picture to Wyatt and ask if he recognized him?
They were both veterans. They'd both been stationed at the border.
Shane wouldn't have asked that question unless someone who looked an awful lot like Xavier Cross had been involved in something illegal back then.
Otherwise, he never would have flagged it for Wyatt.
She pressed her lips together and said nothing more. This was one of those things she knew better than to pry into. Turning away, Avery went to the water cooler, poured herself a glass, and started running lines in front of the mirror on the far wall.
The moment she was gone, Shane's casual demeanor vanished. His face hardened, and his eyes glinted with a sharp intensity as he exchanged a loaded glance with Wyatt. Without another word, he picked up his documents and headed for the twelfth floor.
Wyatt understood immediately. He gave Avery a quick nod, then followed Shane out. A few minutes after lunch, the two of them left together, taking Leo Foster's car.
Avery, meanwhile, got back to work. Of the four guest roles she'd lined up, only the one where she played a man was left to shoot.
With two more weeks left in California, she sent a message to her agent, Diana Marks, asking her to look for a few more guest spots or even some uncredited supporting roles to fill the time.
Diana was in the middle of afternoon tea with the scriptwriter and director of *You Are My Defender*. Avery's message came through, and Diana's eyes lit up before she immediately launched a video call.
Avery answered, and after a quick hello, Diana flipped the camera around to show two people sitting under a grapevine trellis.
They were in some kind of open-air courtyard, looking entirely too relaxed for a business meeting.
It was late autumn, so the trellis was bare except for a few old, gnarled branches.
Nearby, several pots of vibrant orchids sat on a wooden shelf.
A man and a woman came into view. The man looked to be in his early forties, dressed in casual linen, with a refined, gentle air about him.
When Diana aimed the phone his way, he smiled into the camera by way of a greeting.
The woman beside him was younger, with a petite, delicate frame.
She was in a wheelchair, a crutch resting against it, suggesting her legs were in bad shape.
"Avery, let me introduce you!" Diana said cheerfully. "This is Leo Bell, the director of *You Are My Defender*, and this is our scriptwriter, Clara King. I showed them the script pages you revised. Let's all have a chat about it."
"Hello, Ms. Hayes," Clara said, her voice soft and sweet with a Southern accent. "I've read your notes. Are you a law student?"
Avery smiled back at the screen. "No, I'm a med student, but I did study all the core law courses on my own."
Director Leo Bell let out a hearty laugh. "Clara, you might not know this, but Ms. Hayes here also took the Bar Exam a little while ago. When it comes to the law, she's probably more of an expert than you are."
"You're too kind, Mr. Bell," Avery said, keeping her smile modest. She wasn't surprised he knew about her. She was still lingering on the edges of trending topics online; anyone who'd paid attention to the recent medical malpractice scandal would know her name.