“Well, Tuesday.”
“Teaching.”
He frowned at her.
“I’ll make it clear. You and I are going to spend some time together or your movie is over and you’ll be in jail. I see a house full of stolen goods and kids missing school to hang out with you. It doesn’t look good. You need to keep me happy Davina. Very happy.”
Davina felt sick. Everything within her screamed to run. Instead she swallowed t
he nausea and looked him in the eye.
“I’m free Thursday,” she said coldly.
“Thursday it is.” He leered at her. “And wear that green dress. I like it.”
Just then the boys barrelled into the room, looking for brownies. Davina excused herself and ran to the upstairs bathroom. She splashed her face with icy cold water before sitting on the edge of the tub.
She’d gotten herself into this mess but she had no idea how to get out. And all the while there was a little voice in her head asking her if the movie was really worth it. Asking her if she needed to be an actress so desperately that she would do anything to achieve it?
Anything at all?
CHAPTER SEVEN
8 DAYS TO MAKE A MOVIE...
POUNDING WOKE JACK early on Monday morning. It took him a minute to realise that it wasn’t in his head. He looked at the clock, barely seven. It had been two a.m. by the time he’d finished listening in on Davina and crawled into bed. Less than five hours sleep was nowhere near enough. The pounding continued. Jack struggled out of bed. There was a good chance he was going to kill whoever was at the door.
“Morning,” Andy said, far too cheerily.
Jack leaned against the open door.
“I know. Thanks for the update. Bye now.”
He swung the door shut, but Andy slipped in before it slammed.
“I thought you’d be up already – you were always an early riser.”
“Habits change.”
When he was police, he needed to be there early. Now he followed Davy’s crazy routine which tended to start around midday and go on forever.
“I’ll make coffee. You put clothes on.”
Jack grunted, scratched his belly and headed to the bathroom.
“The coffee better be good,” he told his best friend. “Or you’ll be leaving by the window.”
He heard muttering as he closed the bathroom door. Ten minutes, one pair of jeans, and a reasonably clean T-shirt later and he was sitting sipping coffee thick enough to stand a spoon in.
“So what brings you out here in the middle of the night? And without doughnuts. If this was an American cop drama, you’d have doughnuts.”
Andy gave him, his you’re-not-as-funny-as-you-think, look.
“I have the background check. Thought you’d want to look at it. And.” He paused. Even through Jack’s sleep haze he could see Andy’s manner was grave. “I have the results on the brownie.”
Adrenalin rushed through Jack, making him sit up straight at the breakfast bar. This was more like it. Hard evidence. After a day spent listening to Davy talk about lighting with Ken Doll and PMT with her best friend, he needed a pick me up. He reached for the folder.
“You won’t find anything in it,” Andy told him. “Her background is clean.”