She eyed the kids at the shoot. Could it all have been a wild prank, one that had been blown out of proportion? But why? And who would have been behind it? And how did it connect with Destiny Rose’s death? That was the really disturbing part, that Destiny had been killed, and now Marjory. Lindsay Cronin, too, if Bianca’s mom was right. Regan was convinced that the deaths were somehow connected.
Standing between a crane and the path to the Porta Potties, Bianca stared at her friends with new eyes, her vision changed by the tragedies that had occurred. Despite the warm night, Bianca shivered and rubbed her arms with her hands. As the campfire scene was filmed, then over, the crew switched to the second location in the parking lot, where two pickups and Austin Reece’s BMW were parked.
Lara and Austin were to be making out inside the sports car. According to the script, there was to be a dark shadow looming and moving ever closer behind the back of the BMW. As Barclay had described the scene: “It’s going to look like all those ghost stories we all grew up with where the teenagers are really going at it, the girl’s blouse is coming off and she’s in her bra, but there’s a deadly killer outside and we, as the viewers, see it. Know that death is nearby. Bill,” he’d called to one of the cameramen, “I’ll want the camera to come in from the Big Foot’s perspective, at the rear of the car, of course—make sure we don’t see the license plate, just the rear window, which will be foggy as things are really heating up inside, okay? Everyone else, back, we want this to look like Lara and Austin are all alone.”
How this new scene would fit into the original story line, Bianca wasn’t certain, since the scenes were filmed out of order rather than sequentially, then patched together. She didn’t know if the make-out scene in the car would be cut in before the guitar scene at the campfire or Bianca’s already filmed action scene where she ended up in the creek.
As the actors were moved from one shooting site to the next and the cameras were rearranged, Maddie, the diet soda swinging from her fingers, sought out Teej again. Once more, Bianca was left on her own. She thought about calling Jeremy to come get her, but she wasn’t ready to go home yet, and besides, the deal was that everyone was supposed to stay until the shoot was over for the night.
So she hung in the periphery, saw Carlton Jeffe and Ivor Hicks and a few other Big Foot Believers and wondered how she’d fallen out of favor so quickly. Not that long ago Barclay Sphinx had been interviewing her, talking up her story at the Big Foot Believers meeting. And what had happened to all that talk about a trailer and setting up a reward for helping locate Destiny Rose Montclaire’s killer? Was that still on the table? She didn’t know because she was out of the loop and Lara, now in only a bra and short skirt as she stood near the open door of Austin’s BMW, was Barclay’s latest discovery.
Bianca couldn’t help but feel a little like a girl out in the cold, her nose pressed to the window of a home where a birthday party was in full swing, a celebration from which she’d been excluded or, more likely, recently uninvited.
Wah, wah, she chided. Get over your bad self.
“Okay, everyone . . . back up. We need a little more room here,” Mel said to the crowd.
The action started up again, and Bianca inched farther into the shadows, her attention focused on Austin’s car and Lara overacting all over the place. Bianca couldn’t stand it another second. Who cared if she was supposed to stay for the entire shoot? They were never going to ask her to be a part of any of the scenes. She’d been here over three hours, and not once had anyone in production spoken to her, except to tell her to stay out of the way. It was all just a big waste of time. She should just call Jeremy and go home, rest her ankle and figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life, which, obviously, wasn’t going to be a part of Big Foot Territory: Montana!
She started for the main gate and reached into her pocket automatically. Of course it wasn’t there. Great. Now what? She either had to borrow a phone from someone here or wait for a ride. She started to turn back to the set when she heard the first twig snap.
Craaack!
Glancing over her shoulder, she searched the darkness.
No one.
Nothing.
You’re being a moron, she told herself, but felt a movement, a disturbance in the air, an undercurrent that caused her heart to still.
That was crazy, though, right?
She was still inside the gate.
Another sound—the shuffle of stealthy footsteps?
Fear sizzled through her bloodstream, a very primal wariness.
One more look over her shoulder and she saw only the darkened forest surrounding the lane where cars were parked haphazardly. Nothing to worry about—
She started to look over her shoulder just as something cold and hard was pressed against the side of her neck. A gun? A gun with teeth?
“Don’t move,” a low male voice ordered, a voice she thought she recognized.
“What?”
Zaaaap!
Pain ripped through her body.
Her scream was a mere gurgle in her throat.
Thousands of volts sizzled through her body. Needles of pain. She jerked. Her legs gave way. She fell, hard, the ground rushing up, her head clunking, dust flying into her mouth, her cheek twitching against the gravel.
What, what, what? She thought around the agony of having no control as her muscles spasmed, her eyes out of focus. Pain ricocheted through her and she tried to think, to see, to scream, but could do nothing.
“I told you not to move, Bianca. Jesus, you’re a fuckin’ bitch.”