THE FOLLOWING DAY didn’t start well. The script had said rain, but real rain seemed to be a problem, and an unscheduled downpour had stopped filming for a while. Rumour had it that Carly was confined to her room at the hotel with a stomach bug, and Sophie’s face was set in a hard, concentrated frown. She avoided him as if he had something catching.
Joel had called cut, and the clapperboard signalled the tenth rerun of a scene that should have been easy. Each time she’d fluffed her lines Sophie’s air of prickly uninterest had increased markedly.
‘It’s all a matter of…’ She stopped suddenly, frowning. ‘This isn’t right, Joel.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake…’ Todd Hunter, her co-star, turned away suddenly, frustration and anger showing on his face. Joel moved in to smooth things over.
‘What’s the matter, Sophie?’
‘It’s not right… Give me the script…’ Sophie looked as if she was about to burst into tears.
A copy of the script appeared out of nowhere, and Sophie leafed through it, seemingly too dissatisfied to find the right page, and then threw it to one side. Drew got to his feet, navigating through the circle of cameras and sound technicians around her.
‘It’s nearly lunchtime. We’ll take a break.’ Joel seemed resigned to handling Sophie’s moods and perhaps he thought that the catering truck could do what he couldn’t and get today on a better footing. ‘Sophie…’
Joel’s mouth quirked in an expression of helplessness as he found himself speaking to thin air. Sophie was already on her way to her trailer, cutting a swathe into the crowd around her as they moved to get out of her way.
Jennie, a bright, usually happy young woman, who had introduced herself yesterday to Drew as Sophie’s assistant, ran after her. He saw Sophie turn, aiming a couple of angry words in Jennie’s direction and gesturing to her to go away. Jennie fell back, her face reddening, and Drew frowned. That kind of behaviour really wasn’t necessary.
Drew pushed through the groups of people who were putting some distance between themselves and Sophie. She could act up with Joel, and he’d try to smooth things over to get her co-operation. Everyone else would cave in to her tantrums, in fear for their jobs. But this was one job he didn’t need to keep.
Dammit! One curse vied with another in her head, filling her thoughts with the kind of obscenities that she never spoke out loud. She was turning into a monster. Slowly and irrevocably, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
‘Sophie…’
The one voice she didn’t want to hear. The doctor. Damn him, too.
‘Sophie…?’
He didn’t give up, did he? She was twenty feet from her trailer and then she could slam the door in his face, lock him out.
She didn’t make it. With just a couple of paces to go before she reached safety, she felt his hand on her arm.
‘Let go of me.’ She whipped her arm away as if he’d grabbed it, not just touched it lightly.
‘Wait, Sophie.’
His tone was so sure, so commanding, and in a sea of misunderstandings and unknowns it was the only thing that seemed to make any sense. Despite herself, she stopped.
‘You haven’t figured out how things work around here yet, have you?’ She glared at him. ‘I’m at the top of the pecking order and you’re at the bottom. You don’t tell me what to do.’
That bloody smile again. Relaxed and assured, the smile of a man who already knew his place in the world and didn’t need anyone to tell him what it was. And dangerous in the extreme. ‘I thought that was exactly my role. I’m an advisor and so I advise.’
‘Don’t be smart with me.’ Sophie rolled her eyes and turned away from him, as if what he’d just said didn’t deserve a proper answer. That always seemed to work when she couldn’t come up with the words she wanted.
He slipped past her, opening the door of her trailer and walking inside. Her private trailer. The only place where she could take some refuge from the noise and bustle of the set. Panic started to rise in her chest.
‘Get. Out.’
‘There seems to be something wrong. I’d like to help.’
‘I don’t need help.’ Anger wasn’t working, and she tried another tack. Right on cue she summoned tears and a look of melting supplication. ‘Please, go…’
He smiled, sitting down in one of the comfortable armchairs in the seating area. ‘Nice one. You’re very good.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Sophie scowled at him.
‘It means that you’re a tremendous actress. And that you’ll do anything to stop anyone finding out the difficulties you’re having right now. Only I see through it.’
If he’d had any doubts about his conclusions before, the mock tears and that look of seductive pleading banished them altogether. She knew exactly what was wrong with her. If he could get through to her, just talk to her and make her see sense, then he’d be out of here in a week and back to a world where sanity was more of a guiding principle.
She sat down opposite him. That was something. Sitting was better than running.
‘Who sent you to spy on me? Who are you reporting to?’
‘No one. It’s not like that at all, Sophie. When Carly spoke to me she mentioned…’
Wrong move. All the colour drained from Sophie’s face and her hand flew to her mouth. Tears formed in her eyes and this time they looked like the real thing.
‘Carly…? No…’
‘Carly happened to mention that you were under a bit of stress.’ That was stretching the truth to breaking point, but he’d already landed Carly in enough hot water.
Sophie stared at him blankly. Drew had seen that look before, when everything became too much and someone started to shut down.
‘Sophie, listen to me. It’s okay…’
‘You think that any of this is okay?’ she flashed back at him.
Time for the truth. ‘All right. I don’t know anything for sure, but here’s what I think I know. You’re having difficulties with your short-term memory. The things you’ve known for a while are no problem, it’s new information that you can’t process properly. It’s possible that you sustained a mild traumatic brain injury in your recent car accident.’
‘Carly just happened to mention that as well?’ She’d composed herself now, and was staring straight at him.
‘She’s a good friend to you, Sophie, and she’s trying to help you.’ If he could do nothing else, at least he could try to repair the damage he’d done. So far he’d only managed to isolate Sophie even further from the one person who seemed to care about her.
‘Whatever. That’s not really your business, is it?’
‘No, it’s just an observation.’
‘Yes, it’s all just observations, isn’t it? I think it’s all in your imagination.’
‘What’s my name, Sophie?’
She shot him a defiant look. ‘Dr…’
‘My name.’
‘What do I care?’ She looked as if she was about to launch into another diatribe about how she was the important person around here, and his status was that of a cockroach, when a knock sounded on the door.
‘Catering…’
‘Come in.’ Sophie pulled herself together and gave the young woman who entered a composed smile,