Don't Look Down

Chapter 2

"I'm really glad you're here," Pepper said, skipping along beside Lucy as they headed for the monitors.

"Me too," Lucy said, trying to get her heart out of her throat. "Don't climb on the rail again." She sat down in one of the four chairs at the monitors and helped Pepper up into the chair at the end of the row, thinking seriously about duct taping her to it. My God, she thought, we almost lost her. Somebody was going to have to watch her every minute. Somebody like her mother, maybe.

Where the hell was Daisy?

Gloom sat down on her other side. "I like the new guy." He smiled across her at Pepper. "Hello, trouble," he said, affection palpable in his voice. "Don't climb any more bridges, okay?"

Pepper beamed over at him. "Okay. Gloom, did you know there were Super Hero Barbies?"

"No," Gloom said, sounding honestly surprised. "Damn. Really?"

Pepper nodded, satisfied, and picked up her binoculars.

"As I was saying," Gloom said to Lucy. "The new guy is hot."

"So is Connor," Lucy said. "Look how gorgeous he is."

"It takes more than big broad shoulders to make a man," Gloom said.

Lucy closed her eyes. "Don't tell me. That's a movie quote from some macho-"

"High Noon. I'm just saying, the new guy? More than big broad shoulders."

"Great," Lucy said, trying not to look down the bridge at Wilder again. "Go for it. Have you seen Daisy?"

"He doesn't play for my team," Gloom said. "But I'm pretty sure he wants to play on yours."

"What team?" Pepper said, pulling away from her binoculars.

"My movie team," Lucy said brightly. "Like you and Gloom."

"Oh." Pepper sat back. "I think he should be on our team, too. I like him." She went back to scanning the swamp again.

"So, Daisy?" Lucy said to Gloom.

"Haven't seen her." Gloom nodded down the bridge. "About this new guy. I think you should pay attention there."

Lucy looked again. The three men stood in a loose semicircle, Wilder and Connor both looking solid and sure, Bryce doing his best with what he had to work with.

Gloom started to hum off-key, and Lucy tried to ignore him, but she finally gave up and said, "Okay, what is that?"

"Your theme song, babe," Gloom said. "Bonnie Tyler. 'Holding Out For A Hero.' It's got to be playing in your head whenever you look at that guy."

She turned back. "There are no heroes. And if I decide to go that macho route again, I'll go back to Connor. At least he's the devil I know."

Gloom shook his head. "I don't think this guy is Connor. I think maybe he's Will Kane."

"Who's Will Kane?" Pepper asked, looking away from her binoculars.

"The sheriff" from High Noon," Gloom told her. 'Noble, true, and brave."

"I liked that movie," Pepper said and then frowned. "Well, I liked the ending of that movie."

"Good," Gloom said. "Make your aunt watch it."

"Forget Will Kane," Lucy said. "Let's pretend we're professionals. Tell me about the set." She looked out at the aimless, milling people. "We've been here half an hour. I assume you're best friends with everybody by now."

Gloom sent one more speculative look down the bridge to Wilder and then said, "Well, if you must talk about this mess, we've got trouble right here in River City."

"Trouble?"

"The director died," Gloom said. "The first and second ADs both quit."

"I know this," Lucy said, distracted as Connor headed back to them. "Wait a minute, the second AD quit, too?"

"And the line producer went back to L.A.," Gloom said.

Lucy stopped. "There's no producer on set? What the-"

"Which is also when the DP quit," Gloom continued as Connor came up to the monitors.

"Hello, love," he said to Lucy, his grin lazy and inviting. "Not the way I'd planned our reunion, but-"

Lucy looked back at Gloom. "There's no director of photography?"

Gloom smiled at her, radiating I told you so.

Lucy looked over the monitors at Connor, whose smile was not quite as wide now. "Hello, Connor. Who's running the camera crew?"

"We've got three guys," Connor said. "That's plenty. And hello to you, too. I-"

"So forget running four cameras for the helicopter stunts on Wednesday and Thursday," Gloom said, and Connor lost his smile completely.

Lucy leaned closer to the monitors. "Connor, why is there not enough crew here?"

"It's a skeleton crew," Connor said, "but-"

"I'd say you're down to bone marrow," Gloom said.

Connor's face darkened, and Lucy braced herself for the explosion, but then he took a deep breath and shook his head. "We have what we need."

Lucy held on to her temper. "I'll let you know what I need. Which reminds me, you only faxed me the last pages of this script. Where's the rest?"

Connor shook his head and said, "You don't need-"

"I said I'd tell you what I needed," Lucy snapped. "And I need the whole damn script."

Connor set his jaw as the color rose in his face. He stared at her for a minute and then walked away.

"Well, at least he's learned how to keep his temper," Lucy said to Gloom.

"He hasn't changed, Lucy," Gloom said. "Trust me, I know this guy and he has not changed. Now about this Wilder-"

"No." Lucy refused to let her eyes stray down the bridge. "This is not a social visit, I'm finishing a movie here." Pepper looked up from her binoculars, and Lucy added, "And playing Barbies."

"Yes!" Pepper said, straightening in her joy.

"I suppose that's a plan," Gloom said, "but-"

"Sorry I'm late."

Lucy looked around to see the top of her sister's frizzy yellow head as she slid into the folding chair beside Pepper, looking like a demented dandelion as she clumsily balanced her notebook, her headphones, her bottle of water, her pen, her camera, and her wide-brimmed yellow straw hat. Then she tried to hug Lucy without losing any of it.

"Hey." Lucy hugged her back, careful not to dislodge anything, alarmed at how thin Daisy felt in her arms. "Look at you," she said, pulling back. "You look-"

Blond little Daisy gazed up at her, dull eyed, sunken cheeked, and ashen.

Lucy finished, "-Great. You look just… great.'' Oh, God, what's happened to you?

"I'm glad you're here," Daisy said. She sounded sincere but tired, almost groggy, and Lucy leaned down to see her better.

"I'm glad, too." Your kid almost fell off a bridge. Probably not the time to tell her that. "Are you okay?"

Daisy nodded, smiling weakly.

"Have you been sick, honey?" Lucy said, trying to see under her hat. "Are you getting enough sleep?"

"She sleeps all the time," Pepper said, her face solemn. "And I am very quiet."

"I'm fine," Daisy said, ducking her head down.

"Lucy!"

Lucy looked up and saw Bryce standing on the other side of the monitors.

"I need to talk to Lucy before I go to makeup," he told Gloom and Daisy, sounding important. "Alone."

They got up to move away before Lucy could, Daisy juggling all her stuff, Gloom rolling his eyes. Even Pepper looked exasperated.

Bryce was oblivious.

Lucy watched Daisy move down the bridge, her little ex-cheerleader body slumped, five feet four inches of exhaustion. Pepper was the one who'd sounded unhappy on the phone, not Daisy, but maybe that was because Pepper knew something was wrong with her mother-

"There's something I need to tell you," Bryce said, leaning over the monitors, his voice low. "J.T. is not just my consultant, he's my new stunt double." He shot an uneasy glance down the bridge. "I thought you should be the one to tell Nash."

Stunt double. Lucy tried to bring her mind back from Daisy. Stunt double, that was bad, that was Connor's team, and Connor already didn't like Wilder. She glanced at Connor to see if he'd heard Bryce and saw him watching Wilder, who didn't seem to notice. She lowered her voice. "You know, Bryce, that would be really great. But it's the last week of shooting, you already have a stunt double, I don't think the production has any money left, and I know it's not insured for Captain Wilder-"

Bryce's face was eager to please. "No, no, he's replacing my double."

Lucy stiffened. "And where did your double go?"

"Away," Bryce said, not being funny. "He said he had to go away."

Sweet Jesus, Lucy thought. What do all these people know that I don't?

"And then I ran into J.T. at Bragg, and my agent heard I didn't have a stunt double and recommended him, and I thought, 'Well, he's the real deal, Special Forces,' so I hired him. It's okay, he's on leave and I'm paying him, and I'll take care of the insurance, too. So you're saving money." He nodded at her, sure of himself as he motioned Wilder over.

Wilder did not look happy at being summoned, but he came to stand beside Bryce, every bit as grim and efficient as when he'd saved Pepper. Lucy looked at him and thought, Who knew grim and efficient could look so good?

She took a deep breath, trying to get her detachment back. "Ever done stunt work before, Captain Wilder?"

"Only for real," he said without expression.

"Uh huh," Lucy said.

"So it's all settled." Bryce spread his hands and almost hit Connor, who'd come up behind him again. "It's a good deal tor everybody. I know these last four days are your big break-"

"No, they're not," Lucy said, startled.

"-But J.T. will be a help, you'll see."

"What's up?" Connor said, clearly trying to sound cheerful and clearly failing.

"Well, I'm trying to shoot a movie," Lucy said, and then leaned back to yell, "Gloom."

Bryce turned back to his new best friend. "Now, J.T., I want you to meet Althea next-that's our lead actress, Althea Bergdorf-because she's nervous about the helicopter because it's gonna swoop down over her head, but you'll be in it so-"

"What?" Connor jerked his head up.

Oh, hell. "Bryce," Lucy began, but Bryce was all wrapped up in Wilder, oblivious to everyone else, talking on a mile a minute, telling Wilder all about the armored car robbery scene.

Pepper climbed up on the chair beside Lucy, an apple in her hand. "Stephanie is supposed to be your assistant but she's not very good. I will be a better assistant than her. I will get you apples and water. And I will stay with you the whole time."

She handed Lucy the apple, and Lucy said, "Yes, you will be a very good assistant. Thank you very much," and bit into it, looking around for Daisy, who had disappeared again. She was definitely going to have a long talk with her sister as soon as she got the hell off this bridge. She ate her apple and looked at the shot sheet and listened to the conversation going on in front of her, wondering which of the three men on the other side of the monitors was going to lose his temper first. Not Wilder, she decided, glancing at his impassive face. Probably didn't have a temper. Probably doesn't have a pulse, she told herself, trying for more distance.

Then he looked over and caught her looking at him and she looked away. Very third-grade, she thought. Good thing I'm a successful advertising director or Id feel like a loser geek.

"Lucy." Connor leaned over the monitors. "Why the fuck is Bryce telling that asshole about the helicopter stunt?"

"Those are bad words, Pepper," Lucy said. "Do not use them."

"Yes, Aunt Lucy," Pepper said, craning her neck to look up at Connor.

"Sorry, honey," Connor said to Pepper, the edge in his voice disappearing. "I didn't see you there. Those are bad words." He came around the monitors to stand beside Lucy, lowering his voice. "I want that guy off my bridge."

Wilder was frowning at the cables overhead as Bryce finished his explanation. "Why use a helicopter at all? Why not use a car to cut off the armored truck?"

Bryce called back, "Why aren't we using a car, Nash?"

Connor jerked around, and Lucy nudged his ankle with the toe of her boot. "He's the star," she whispered to him. "Do not annoy the star."

"Unless this is a comedy-" Wilder was saying to Bryce.

"It's not a comedy," Bryce said, with more emotion than he'd ever shown on-screen. "I'm not doing comedies anymore. It's an action picture. I'm an action hero now."

Since Bryce had made his name slipping on banana peels, this piece of self-delusion was met by universal silence. Even Pepper looked up at him in disbelief.

"I'm playing an ex-Navy SEAL," Bryce said happily. "A real stud muffin."

Wilder frowned. "I told you at Bragg, SEALs are different from Special Forces. They work mostly in the water, so this robbery thing doesn't make sense-"

"Wait a minute," Connor said, and Lucy nudged him harder, more of a kick this time. He ignored her and said to Wilder, "Have you even read the script?"

"No," Wilder said.

"Well then, mate-"

Lucy kicked Connor so hard he flinched.

Pepper tugged on Lucy's shirt.

"Go find your mama, baby," Lucy said. "Tell her we're almost ready to shoot." And take these dickheads with you.

Connor leaned in close, his jaw rigid. "That asshole is not working on my set."

"Bad word again, Pepper," Lucy said as she put her headphones on.

Pepper nodded and slid off her chair to go.

Bryce tapped on the monitor in front of Lucy, and she pulled her headphones back to listen to him.

"J.T. says we'll have to change the helicopter, Lucy.

"The hell we will," Connor said, and Bryce frowned.

"Let me set up this shot first, Bryce, and then we'll talk about it." Lucy looked at the monitor again. They were doing a sequence of shots that would culminate in Althea, the actress playing Annie the Heroine, climbing over the bridge rail with Rick, the actor playing Rip the Bad Guy, trying to stop her since she was his hostage. Annie evidently had the survival instincts of a lemming. The view on the monitor looked good so if Althea and Rick could struggle through several scenes without falling into the river… "All right, people," she said. "Let's go."

"Lucy," Connor said quietly, and she looked up to see him on the other side of the monitors. "Wilder has to go."

"Lucy," 'Bryce said from behind him. "J.T. has to stay."

Lucy looked back at the rail where Wilder was standing, staring up at the bridge cables with all the expression of a G.I. Joe action figure. Not charming. Barely human. The Army couldn't possibly have recruited him. They must have carved him out of granite.

Wilder caught her staring at him and nodded and then looked away.

Really attractive granite that obviously wasn't impressed with her. You have no idea what you're missing, buddy.

But he was the one who'd pulled Pepper off the rail. And Gloom approved of him and Gloom was no dummy. And Bryce wanted him and Bryce was the star. And she was tired of Connor doing the Dick Thing. It was her shoot, damn it.

"He stays," she said and put her headphones back on.

"I have to go down to makeup," Bryce had told Wilder once Armstrong had okayed him. He'd winked as he said it, as if that were code for something else, and there had been a good half hour while he was gone to the base camp down under the bridge that Wilder had used to scope the place.

The bridge itself was beautifully engineered, high in the middle to allow for the container ships that sailed slowly along the Savannah to the port just on the upriver side. It was the people on the bridge that made him shake his head. As far as he could see, the movie crew consisted of people milling around doing nothing in front of other people sitting in chairs doing nothing. One grenade and they'd all be goners. Bryce had tried to explain the chain of command to him before he'd gone, saying, "Well, the first AD runs the shoot while the director directs the filming through the monitors. The second AD does all the paperwork, while the director's assistant assists the director who directs the filming while the first assistant director… uh, the first AD is the one who really runs things." That hadn't helped. What was clear was that Armstrong and Gloom were the ones in charge, sitting in chairs in front of a rolling cart with two TV sets on it-"That's video village," Bryce had said before he'd gone-talking with their heads close together in the middle of lots of lights and poles and booms and cameras on hand trucks, and several cars and a black van, all of them unattended. The sulky-looking brunette Nash had been shrugging off was arguing with him again, the kid was still watching the swamp with her binoculars, and in general the place looked like, well, a clusterfuck.

And then there was the swamp. People had ignored the kid when she'd said there was somebody out there, but he'd been watching her and she was pretty serious about what she was doing. Just because she was five didn't mean she didn't have good eyes.

Wilder would have bet there was something out there. Someone out there. She'd said a ghost, and she wouldn't have said that if she'd seen an animal. Could be just a hunter, some good old boy wading through the swamp, but then why hadn't she seen him again?

Probably nothing to worry about, he told himself, and looked out into the swamp again.

Then Bryce came back in tiger-stripe camouflage fatigues with a combat vest whose most prominent feature was a massive upside-down knife on his left shoulder, so big it covered half his chest. Wilder refrained from shaking his head because he'd learned the weekend before at Fort Bragg that Bryce was quick to pick up any negative cues and wrap his mind around them so tight, it took an hour to unwrap it, and with his hangover still throbbing, Wilder didn't feel like unwrapping anything other than some aspirin.

Behind Bryce was a little woman with a pouty face that had too much makeup on it. Bryce pretty much ignored her as he said, "So what do you think?" squaring his shoulders to show off his knife.

"I think people here talk a lot." Wilder watched Armstrong lean closer to Gloom at the monitors. Not her lover after all, he thought. Wrong body language. He thought, Good, and then shook his head. Not good. This was the kind of job you did and got out fast. No staying behind to hit on the boss.

Bryce followed his eyes. "What? Lucy and Gloom? They're just trying to get up to speed, coming in at the end of everything like this, last four days of shooting. It's tough. The old director had a heart attack, really bad, right on the set at the end of shooting Friday." Bryce shook his head at the brevity of life and the unpredictability of death and then looked down the bridge and brightened. "Look, there's Althea. Come on. You have to meet Althea."

Wilder nodded and followed Bryce down the bridge, while the actor babbled on, saying, "If you're hungry, we can stop by Crafty, that's craft services, the table over there with all kinds of food. I like the Ding Dongs…"

Behind them, the little woman with the makeup pouted harder and then took out her cell phone.

"Who's that?" Wilder said, jerking his head back toward her.

"Huh? Oh, Mary Vanity,' Bryce said. "Makeup girl." He winked at Wilder. "Hot." Then he leered. "Sorry it took me so long."

Wilder's head throbbed harder. Good to know that while he was on a bridge with an armed stunt coordinator and a hostile Amazon, Bryce was having a quickie in the makeup frailer.

"That coin thing, is it some kind of secret thing?" Bryce asked.

"What?"

"The coin check thing. With LaFavre."

If it were a secret, why would I tell you? "Every Special Forces unit has a coin," Wilder said. "Your name gets inscribed on yours when you arrive at the unit, you carry it everywhere, and if challenged, and you don't have it, you have to buy the challenger a drink."

"Can I get one?" Bryce said. "One or those coins? For the movie?"

"Your character's a SEAL," Wilder said. "I don't have any SEAL challenge coins handy and they might not take too kindly to someone outside the unit carrying one."

Bryce looked hurt and Wilder tried to think of something to say to make him feel better but then Bryce said, "Althea!" and Wilder looked up to see the blonde Bryce was leading him toward and forgot his hangover.

It was a damn good thing he'd gotten rid of LaFavre.

She was sitting on the hood of the red convertible they were going to use in the stunts, and she was a little thing, but she had impossible breasts that stretched her tight red T-shirt to the breaking point, and her short white shorts were just as tight.

"Althea," Bryce said when they reached her. "You have to meet J. T. Wilder. J.T. is a real Green Beret."

Althea looked at J.T. and smiled.

Wilder hated to admit it, but he liked Bryce sometimes.

"So you're like Rambo?" Althea ran her hand through her blond curls.

Not exactly, Wilder thought as he tried to focus on her eyes.

Althea smiled even more warmly at Wilder and made him swallow as she held out her hand. "I'm very pleased to meet you, J.T."

Wilder took her hand-slender and cool in his-and nodded, at a loss for words, which was not Bryce's problem. The actor prattled on about how they'd trained together at Bragg-that was a joke right there-while Althea looked at Wilder from under her lashes, biting her lip.

Bryce kept talking as Nash came up behind Althea and checked the harness hidden under her skimpy top, which looked even skimpier under the strain her breasts were putting on it. Wilder shifted his gaze as Nash tugged on Althea's harness and made everything jiggle. Then he looked up to catch Nash shooting more looks his way, looks he ignored this time. There were more important things than pissing contests, such as the amount of Althea-skin being shown as Nash pulled up the back of her T-shirt and checked the harness.

Bryce was still talking, but Wilder's eyes stayed on Althea. He'd seen her in some movie, but he couldn't remember what, something to do with the Navy, he thought. LaFavre would remember; he never forgot a great pair of breasts. And now here she was, flesh and blood. If Wilder remembered the movie rightly, she had shown quite a bit of flesh, more than was currently being displayed. She smiled at him again, dimples this time, and he was pretty sure it was an invitation. He dropped his eyes to her long, thin legs and decided that as soon as he remembered the title of whatever she'd been in, he'd go to Savannah and get the DVD.

"And we've got a real helicopter pilot," Bryce was saying to him. "Karen Roeburn. She's Althea's stunt double, but she's a real pilot, too. She thought the helicopter stunt was okay." He finally ran down, uncertain. "But you said you don't like it because of the bridge cables, right?"

Wilder looked away from Althea's legs as Bryce's buzz penetrated. Female chopper pilot. His second ex-wife had been a chopper pilot.

Before he could say anything, Nash faced him. "I know what I'm doing. We can get the chopper down on the roadway with enough safety clearance."

Not if there's a wind, Wilder thought. The guy was a pro so he had to know that trying to land a helicopter on this bridge was dumb. What was up with him?

"Connor," Bryce said. "You should listen to J.T. He's my consultant."

Nash snorted. "He the one that got you that knife?"

"No, no, I got it." Bryce unsnappcd the leather stay and pulled the huge pig-sticker out or the leather sheath. "I had the props department order it special after I saw how my role was rewritten. I told them my character, Brad, would have a big knife. They got it custom made by this guy in Alabama. Same one who did Rambo's knife in First Blood."

Wilder truly believed he was going to have to get a rifle, climb a tower somewhere, and start shooting if one more person here said "Rambo." The blade was at least a foot long, the front edge honed razor-sharp, the back side serrated for-well, Wilder had no clue what Bryce would use that for other than cutting down a tree. If Bryce had shown that thing at Fort Bragg, the howls would have been heard all the way to Smoke Bomb Hill, where Special Forces had been founded long ago by manly men doing manly things with other men in a manly way. Wilder's first team sergeant had told him that line. He'd have told Bryce, but then he'd have had to listen to it for the rest of the shoot.

Bryce slashed the knife awkwardly through the air, making Althea step back.

"Careful," Wilder said automatically. "You never draw a weapon unless you mean to use it."

Bryce slashed again, almost nicking Althea, and Wilder slipped his hand under Bryce's extended arm, caught it at the wrist, twisted, and applied just a little pressure. Bryce screamed and dropped the weapon.

Wilder let go, feeling guilty, especially when Bryce turned those big puppy eyes on him. "What did you do that for?"

People were watching, including Althea, who was staring at the two of them as if making a decision. Wilder bent over and picked up the monstrosity. He felt the balance. Actually pretty good; he was sure the guy in Alabama knew what the hell he was doing. It was Bryce who didn't have a clue.

"Sorry." Wilder flipped the knife and caught it by the blade, extending the handle to Bryce, who eyed the proffered knife warily. He snatched it, almost slicing Wilder's palm open, slid it back in the sheath, and fastened the leather stay to keep it from falling out and impaling his foot.

"I don't get it." Bryce sounded like a kid whose mother had just questioned the drawing he'd done in school that day. "What don't you like about the knife? I got one for you, too, because you're going to be my stunt double."

"Thank you," Wilder said, trying to mean it.

"He's not doubling for you," Nash said, quiet but firm. "I heard your double left, but Doc can cover you." He nodded toward the round-faced stuntman in glasses hitting the craft services table. "He's an ex-Green Beret, just like your pal here."

"Doc doesn't look anything like me," Bryce said.

Wilder smiled, not his forte. "Please, coach, put me in?"

Nash smiled back at Wilder, and he was much better at it than Wilder was, even though the smile didn't reach his eyes. Perfect teeth. Fanned skin. Probably never had hangovers.

Nash shook his head. "He hasn't even read the script," he said to Bryce.

So you had to be a reader to make Nash's team? Yeah, that was tough. What the hell did these people know about being on a team anyway? There was only one kind of team for Wilder, a Special Forces A-Team, the eleven great guys he'd-

Althea shifted into Wilder's field of vision, and he lost his train of thought. He noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra under her thin, tight T-shirt. And the April evening was evidently a little chilly for her. Got to get that DVD.

"We about ready here?" he heard from behind him and turned. Armstrong stood there, the anti-Althea, tall and strong and in charge, not flirting with anybody, which was too bad. That would be something to see, Armstrong smiling, giving somebody the come-on. Probably that asshole Nash. Jesus.

"J.T. doesn't like my knife," Bryce said, and Armstrong turned those dark, steady eyes on Wilder.

Tough woman, he thought, his pulse picking up. Nothing like soft, bouncy Althea. Then he remembered the wind blowing her shirt back. Maybe a little bouncy-

"So I guess we'll have to change it," Bryce went on, close to whining. "I really want the knife, but once I saw the new ending, I went all the way to Fort Bragg and hired J.T. to help me make this real, so we should listen to him. For the movie."

Good for you, Wilder thought.

"And I would have been with you on that," Armstrong said, "if only you'd brought him in at the beginning. But it's the last four days of shooting and we can't afford to reshoot without the knife. I agree that authentic is good, but you filmed with the knife all last week, so that ship has sailed. Now let's get-"

"J.T.?" Bryce said.

Oh, fuck, here we go. Wilder felt bad for saying anything more, but Bryce was paying him to keep things authentic. "It's just not what Bryce's guy would wear. I know this Brad character is supposed to be an ex-Navy SEAL, and they are studs, no doubt about it."

Bryce stood slightly taller, trying to look the description. Wilder tried not to look at him.

"But they spend a lot of time in the water. That knife would tip a canoe over, never mind a swimmer. They carry dive knives. On their calves. And even if his character is only operating on land, you want something that can kill quickly. Your SEAL isn't going to get in a sword fight with a Roman gladiator and that's about all that knife is good for. He's going to sneak up behind someone late at night and slice his throat wide open or, just as good, but more difficult unless you're a pro, jam the blade up into the jaw to the brain so it's a quick and silent kill."

Armstrong winced, and Wilder ignored her.

"So, optimally, you want something slender, pointed, and double-edged. About six to eight inches long. And he's wearing it wrong." Wilder tapped the upside-down sheath that Bryce had the pig-sticker locked into. He stepped behind the actor, grabbed the handle, jerked it down and clear of the sheath, the leather stay giving way easily, then brought it up, the point a quarter inch from Bryce's jugular before Bryce could turn his head. "You want it in a place where you can easily access it, but the bad guy can't. And hell, if you got to use a knife, the shit has hit the fan anyway. I prefer a gun. Ten millimeter at ten feet. Double-tap in the forehead. Lights out."

They were all staring at him. Armstrong. Bryce. Althea. Even Nash had stopped scowling. Perhaps too much detail.

He lowered the weapon and slid it back into the sheath, giving Bryce a comforting pat on the shoulder with one hand as he locked it down with the other.

Armstrong smiled at them all, the kind of smile that said, I'm cheerful but don't fuck with me. "Thank you. The knife stays. Let's get this show on the road."

She walked off and Wilder watched her long, strong legs crossing concrete again, her red cowboy boots clicking on the pavement. Yep, she was in charge. He turned to Bryce. "Hey, no big deal. Stallone will have knife envy for sure when he sees you with that thing." He looked Bryce over and felt a wave of sadness. "I guess dumping the tiger stripes is a no go, eh?"

"What's wrong with the tiger stripes?"

Nash stifled a laugh, and Wilder looked out at the surrounding forest and swamp that looked nothing like tiger stripes and thought of John Wayne wearing the same type of camouflage in that terrible movie The Green Berets, detested by all the manly men on Smoke Bomb Hill. Four days of this, he thought. Of course, that was also four days of looking at Althea. And Armstrong.

"J.T.? What's wrong with the tiger stripes?"

Wilder gave up. "Not a thing, Bryce."

Screw the hangover; he really needed a drink.