7 Born to Make the Kill

“Look,” Natalie continued. ”I’ve decided that if my career’s going to move forward, I have to take control. My life’s about me, so I’m going for it. If I can’t land this part, then I’ll have to admit I don’t have what it takes and I may as well pack it back to Iowa.”

“How ‘bout I go with you?”

“Nah, but thanks, I’ll be okay. Look, I moved to LA for a break like this. I may have been born in a corn field, but I do know how to take care of myself. It’s not like he grabbed me and threw me in his car. He said ‘if I was interested’ to give him a call.”

“Yeah, but that’s a pretty big carrot you’ll have to admit.”

“I know,” she said. Her dimpled smile began to fade as she absorbed the fervor of Maggie’s alarm. “I’ll confess he had a certain edge about him but in this town you have to put yourself out there, Maggie. No one ever makes it by playing it safe.”

Sue delivered dinner with another forced smile and refilled their coffee cups. Natalie sensed a fusion of excitement and hesitation. That confused her. On the one hand, this could be the opportunity she had been waiting for. Ansell taking an interest in her couldn’t be a bad thing. But what if she blew the screen test? Maggie did have a point, it was kind of sudden, but if it hadn’t been for the casual way Tony approached the offer, she would have walked away without looking back.

She could hear her father saying, “No risk, no reward!” As an independent farmer, there were plenty of risks: pests, weather, equipment failure, the economy, and corporate farms to name a few. Yet many years it did pay off, and when it did, Mom would sew new dresses for her and her younger sister, Cindy, and Dad would replace a broken piece of farm equipment.

“Call me when you get home tonight,” Maggie said after dinner as they walked to Natalie’s car. She gave her a hug, and continued with a whisper into Natalie’s ear, “I know it’ll be late, but call me, I’ll wait up.”

Twenty-five minutes later, Natalie stepped from the bathroom to her closet and selected her wardrobe. After she drew black tights over her legs, she slipped into a mid-thigh length black cotton skirt and a light rose-colored button down blouse. Neither one was expensive, but she thought the outfit might look good to the camera. She finished the ensemble by zipping her black high heel boots snug over her calves and then shrugging into her signature knee-length black leather coat.

On her way out, she passed through the living room and went to the kitchen counter. There she tore off the top sheet of a notepad with the directions to the screen test. As she headed for the door, she glanced around the room at the tattered second-hand furnishings. Maybe this will all change soon, she thought.

At the mirror hanging near the front door, she stopped for one last check. She was stunned to see something wrong. Her makeup was perfect, her clothes were draped just right, she had left the two top buttons of her blouse open to reveal just enough cleavage to tantalize the camera, her smile produced those dimples under her smoky eyes, and her blond hair fell in perfect symmetry over her shoulders. But something—no … someone—else reflected back.

She peered out—that gangly Iowa farm girl, that menacing fourteen year-old who forecasted she would never amount to anything. In the lighted mirror at the studio yesterday she had threatened an appearance, now Amy Westerhill popped her head out. On the way to do a screen test for one of the most important people in town wasn’t the time to be confronted with her unwelcomed emergence. A vision of her always caused Natalie’s confidence to drain like water through a colander of egg noodles.

Natalie had so wanted to leave Amy behind in the cornfields. If there was a wrong side of the tracks in Iowa, she had been born on it. Everything about life there repulsed her. The conversations ad nauseam about the preacher’s sermon over a ritual pot roast dinner at the scarred, bed-sheet draped dining room table; singing endless verses of “Just As I Am” during the altar call at State Street Church; the pink percale curtains on her bedroom window; the sound of her dad starting the tractor as the sun came up; watching her favorite television shows on a fuzzy screen with poor reception, a rooster crowing at sunbreak. All of it said Amy was poor and nobody, and Natalie Beaumont couldn’t bear being that any longer.

To make it worse, her own hormones sabotaged her. In ninth grade she hated to shower after gym class because naked, there was no way to hide that her scrawny and stick-like body had not begun to mature like the other girls in class. The bullies ate her for breakfast it seemed every day for something over which she had no control. But once her body began to blossom, she went from shapeless to shapely in less than four months. Armed with her new figure she believed she had the assets needed to face off with the popular girls.

Over her mother’s stringent objections—“good Christian girls don’t jump and gyrate in front of a crowd wearing short skirts”— she decided to try out for the high school cheerleading squad. At cheerleader camp in August that year, she nailed the routine on the third try. When tryouts came the next week, though, the Queen—the head varsity cheerleader with her long tanned legs, and a following of submissive minions—inclined her head to one of the sycophants at her ear. From the sideways glances, snickers and pointed fingers, Amy knew she was the subject.

Amy fought through the obvious mockery without missing a chant or beat. But when she finished, the Queen from her throne—a director’s chair on the fifty yard line of the football field—gave Amy a derisive glance. She started with Amy’s toes and scanned up her entire body as if she was judging the up-and-coming competition. When she reached Amy’s face, the Queen with a smirk, but without a word, turned her thumbs down like Nero with the sentence of death to some Christian in the Coliseum. With that voiceless, dismissive rejection, Amy knew she would never transcend beyond the social class to which she had been unwittingly sentenced by birth. Amy Westerhill had no more value than a wind-tossed cornstalk.

“Damn you, Amy,” Natalie said to the image. “You’re not welcome here, ever!”

Amy looked back and her eyes, a mixture of scorn and sadness, taunted Natalie in silence. Waves of self-doubt washed over Natalie to where she began to feel nauseous. Even changing her name couldn’t erase where she came from or, in her solitary moments, who her heart witnessed she really was. Who was she kidding? She was weak, insecure, and maybe even untalented. Could it be that even those high school theater accolades were the product of stupid farmers who wouldn’t know talent if they turned it up with their plow? Do I have no business trying to make it in Hollywood?

She swallowed hard and pushed the sickening urge down. Natalie glared back at the reflection of the girl she had to escape. “Damn you again, Amy. Whatever it takes,” she screamed. “Whatever it damn well takes!”

Then, with a sharp twist away from the mirror, she stomped to the front door.

_____

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6 Born to Make the Kill

Natalie stepped into the busy neighborhood diner. The comforting scent of deep fried onions rings, grilled ground beef, and marinara sauce—nothing I’d eat—greeted her as did the warm smile from her friend, Maggie Jacobs. Natalie waved and made her way through the crowd. She slipped under the black laminate table onto the forest green bench seat on the opposite side of the booth. Her nose curled up as she gave her friend a mysterious smile.

With a grin demanding the truth, Maggie said, “So? Tell me!”

After Natalie left the studio yesterday, she sent Maggie a teasing “Wait ‘til you hear what happened today” voicemail, but they hadn’t yet connected.

“Coffee?” asked the server who had followed Natalie to the table.

“Please,” Natalie replied and noticed Maggie’ hands wrapped around a white mug having already had this brief conversation.

“Cream?”

She glanced up to a plump girl about her age with blotchy red cheeks and stringy brown hair. Her name badge said, “Sue.”

“No just black, thanks,” Natalie answered.

“Would you like a menu?” Sue asked as she poured Natalie’s coffee. Her perfunctory tone indicated even though she was young, she knew her life could end up being an endless stream of memorized coffee shop questions about beverages, menus and desserts. Natalie, on the other hand seemed to be in pursuit of a speechless career—lights, camera, but little action.

“Yes, thank you.” Natalie said and held out her hand.

Sue slid the menu from under her arm, handed it to Natalie and topped off Maggie’s cup all as if on autopilot. “I’ll be right back to take your order.”

As she retreated, Natalie watched her walk back to the counter. Sue rested her hand on the shoulder of a male customer sitting on a stool and paused long enough for him to slip his arm around her waist. She empathized with the girl. Sue was an actress too, destined to a life of using her sexuality for better tips.

“Well?” Maggie asked.

Maggie lived a few doors down from Natalie in the same apartment building. A couple of years older, she was the first person to befriend Natalie when she had moved to town. Since they were both alone in LA, they had made a pact to keep tabs on each other. Maggie had told Natalie that her face was too plain to be on film, and besides, she was too shy to be an actress. But she always seemed eager to hear Natalie’s stories about the famous people she worked with—whatever drama Natalie would spill.

“Okay, okay,” Natalie said and leaned forward toward the table. “I told you I was doing a scene yesterday with Ansell Parker, right?”

“Yeah, go on.”

“Well, I was playing a dead girl—”

“What’s new?” Maggie said and chuckled.

“I know, I know. Old joke! Well, I may not be playing dead much longer.”

“Why, what happened?”

“At the end of my scene, while the cameras were still rolling, he kissed me. I was just the dead girl and Ansell Parker kissed me.”

“So … I take it that wasn’t in the script?”

“No, and it was no peck on the cheek, either, it was right on my mouth.”

“So … then what?” Maggie asked. She twisted a small strand of short rust-colored hair around her finger. It slipped loose, so she worked to grab it again.

“Then nothing,” Natalie said. She took a swallow of her coffee and leaned back into the bench. “The director said, ‘Cut, print,’ and everyone disappeared. I think they were anxious to watch the World Series.”

“That’s it? How does that move your career from dead girl?”

Natalie raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes. “Well, Ansell did stop to congratulate me on the scene and then there’s the other thing.”

“Other—?”

“What can I get for you ladies?” Sue interrupted, pen and pad in hand.

The two hadn’t noticed the server’s reappearance nor looked at their menus. Natalie and Maggie opened them, scanned the selections and placed their orders.

“We’ll have that right up,” Sue said with a mechanical smile pasted on her face and then turned to head back to the counter.

“What other thing?” Maggie prodded. Her deep brown eyes danced with excitement.

“Well, I can’t really tell you everything,” she continued, “‘cause it’s top secret.”

“Really? You tell me you have great news and then won’t put out? Come on, give me something.”

“Okay, okay,” Natalie agreed. She surrendered a sly smile and a wink. “I’ll tell you as much as I can.”

“I guess that’ll have to do. Let’s have it.”

“So, when I headed to my car after the shoot yesterday, there was a man in the parking lot waiting for me.” She looked around the diner and found no one close enough to hear. She lowered her voice and continued, “His name is Tony Alonso. He’s an associate producer for a film company. It’s the man behind the company who sent him to look me up.”

“Who’s that?”

“That’s the part I can’t tell, but you’d know the name, believe me. He wants me to do a screen test.”

“You’re kidding? You’re going to do it?”

“Of course I am!”

“When is it?”

“Tonight at ten”

“Tonight … ten? Isn’t that kind of late? Are you okay with this?”

“Sure,” Natalie said and nodded her head. She looked at Maggie as if she should understand that the workings of Hollywood are not of this world. “Because of the secrecy around the project, they have to be very discreet. Sometimes this is the way it works.”

“What do you know about this guy?”

“Nothing, he’s just a guy in a parking lot,” she replied, and leaned forward, the gold flecks in her smoky eyes sparkled as she continued, “who might be able to make me a star.”

“What if this guy’s not on the level? Did you check him out?”

“No time. I had to work at the grocery last night ‘til close and then again all day today. I just got off.”

“He could be an ax murderer, Natalie.”

“Seriously? You’ve been watching too many cult-slasher films.”

“What does your agent say?”

“Haven’t told him and don’t plan to.”

“But he’s on your side.”

“Doesn’t feel like it lately,” Natalie said and shook her head.

Once she hit LA, she schlepped her portfolio around to agencies until she found someone who agreed to sign her. Fiftyish and pleasant enough, her agent sported a monkish fringe of hair, a rotund belly and a blossoming nose, the result of too many three-martini lunches. He got to work right way, though, and set her up with a casting call.

She landed the role in a pilot for a television show targeting the after school market. Set in a fictional LA high school, her character, a snarky teenager, delivered her one line from the back of the classroom. When the history teacher asked, “What brought about the Boston Tea Party?” she quipped, “Everyone knows it’s ‘cause those Bostonians preferred lattes to tea.” The pilot, however, never saw the small screen, so the project was scrapped and with it, Natalie felt like her chances got tossed in the dumpster.

So, with almost two years passed, she had become convinced her agent hadn’t been promoting her best interest. Auditions were rare. Most of the time, he represented from a photo array like mug shots at police headquarters. She had no voice. With an agent, she had to wait for someone else to say, “I’ll take that one.” He saw her as nothing more than screen candy, and once she reached her eighteenth birthday, with her face and body curves, the studios were anxious to sign her just to get a cheap nudity rating.

Then, just two weeks ago, she had expressed her aggravation to him. He said, “Let me see what I can do.” But the placating tone and the wink of his eye told Natalie the truth. It was more what she would have to do to get him to work harder on her behalf—favor him with a night between the sheets. Up to now she had resisted that tack but with her career momentum in the doldrums, she had begun to consider a one-time dalliance, if it had promise, might be what it would take.

_____

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© Jearl Rugh 2012

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5 Born to Make the Kill

Natalie stepped out through the side door of Sound Stage 4 at Xandar Studios into the sunlight. She had used a white scrunchie to bind her blond hair into a ponytail and then, still damp from the shower, pulled it through the back strap of a pink baseball cap. She turned her head first left then right, and her hair brushed across her spaghetti-strapped shoulder blades. Since no vehicles moved or threatened, she turned right toward her Toyota.

The late October sun rested low on the horizon and splayed orange, yellow and gray striate through the afternoon smog and high-altitude airliner vapor trails. She slipped sunglasses from the bill of her hat and set them over her eyes. Twenty feet ahead and to her left, a man leaned against the trunk lid of a powder blue BMW. Despite the warmth of the evening, he wore a loose fitting tan, tweed jacket that looked to be at least two sizes too large. He took a long drag on a cigarette and stared at her. 

When she drew next to him, she turned her face. He wore his tie in a loose knot and it rested just below his large larynx. He reached to the nosepiece of black-framed wraparound sunglasses and pushed them up the narrow bridge of his sweat-glistened nose. Either the lenses were so dark she couldn’t see his eyes or the sun glare obscured their outline. He took another drag from the cigarette and exhaled slowly. The gentle afternoon breeze pushed the smoke across his acne-scared cheeks. She offered him a polite smile. This guy’s got to be direct from central casting.

“Good evening. Miss Beaumont?” the man asked, and rose from the BMW. He took a step toward her.

She slowed her pace surprised he knew her name. “Yes, and you are?”

“My name is Tony Alonso,” he answered, and flicked the remains of his cigarette away. “Do you have a moment?”

Always wary of unsolicited attention, Natalie made it a habit to be on guard. With her real job at the grocery, the studio, and acting classes she didn’t have much time to go out, but when she did it was because she wanted to spend time with a friend, not end up a tick on some guy’s scorecard. She trusted first impressions. This one wasn’t screaming, “Run for your life,” but something behind the man’s smile and his nasal New Jersey accent warned, “Keep a comfortable distance.”

She stopped and turned back toward him. “I’m in kind-of-a hurry. Got to get to work.”

“I don’t wish to keep you, but if you could take just a moment … You may have heard of me … or my partner.”

She had no idea who Tony Alonso was, but the east coast tenor of his voice held her captive long enough to hear about his partner. She kept several feet between them, tilted her head to the right and waited. When he didn’t continue, she nodded and said, “Go on.”

“Did you just finish a scene with Ansell Parker?” he asked. He reached into the left inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pack of Berkley cigarettes.

“Yes,” she replied, and sensed a broad grin spread across her face with the memory of Ansell’s tender lips on hers less than an hour ago.

“Smoke?” he offered. He took another step toward her and held out the crumpled pack.

“No thank you, never took it up.”

He slipped one out with his teeth by the filtered end. While he returned the pack to his jacket, he removed a lighter from the left hip pocket of his blue jeans. With a flick of the flint, he lit the cigarette and filled his lungs. As if he needed the smoke to supply a dosage of nicotine induced composure before he could continue, he held it in. Then, after a few second’s pause, a blue cloud spilled out of his mouth as he spoke.

“He was quite impressed with you, you know?” He ran his left hand over the dark hair on the side of his head and slipped his fingers down his ponytail. To Natalie it looked more than just damp like her hair, but unwashed and filled with bodily secretions.

“He hardly noticed me.”

“That’s not what he told me when we spoke a bit ago.”

He looked around the parking lot as if he needed to ensure no one could eavesdrop and then took another step towards her. Natalie heard an internal voice whisper a warning that she should retreat a step, but that seemed rude. At her changing room door, she had felt just such urgency when the boy with the brown hair appeared out of the darkness, but that turned out to be a false alarm. Besides they were standing in the middle of a parking lot in broad daylight. What could happen? Tony had piqued her interest by knowing her name and, further intrigued by a partner yet to be named, she held her footing.

Tony continued. “What I’m about to tell you can go no further than here.”

It seemed like Tony intentionally drug out the suspense just to taunt her. Her mind rushed forward. Could Ansell be the partner? How could she ever forget him calling her by name when he stopped to congratulate her on the scene? He did take a cell phone from his assistant when he walked away. Did he call Tony?

She replied with more haste than she intended. “Okay.”

“Ansell doesn’t want a breath of this in the trades or tabloids. You understand?”

Her apprehension being supplanted by anticipation and now even more anxious for him to get to the point, she tried to corral her emotions and returned to a relaxed smile.

“Of course.”

“You may not be aware of it, Ms. Beaumont, but he has a new project. He’s formed a production company and will be producing a film soon. If you’re interested, he’d like you to read for a part.”

She caught her breath as her heart rate quickened, the sudden pounding only eclipsed by the questions that filled her mind. She had hoped Ansell would notice her. Is this my chance? Can this really be happening? Is it more than just another dead girl role?

She realized the man had not stopped speaking and she forced herself to catch every word.

“… I’m one of the associate producers on the film,” he continued. He touched his chest with his right hand. The cigarette dangled between two fingers with a half inch of ash about to fall off. “He would like you to do a screen test. Because of the secrecy, it will be in a discreet location. Would you be interested?”

She did not want to appear too excited or even worse, desperate. It seemed almost too good—too perfect—to believe. Yet the break she had hoped for since she learned about her shoot today stood three feet away offering her a screen test for Ansell Parker.

“I might be.”

“Tell you what,” Tony said. He slipped his sunglasses off with one hand and withdrew a paper from his shirt pocket with the other. “Here’s my number. You think it over and if you’re interested, give me a call tomorrow.”

She took the paper and glanced at it. Not a business card, it had been ripped from a pocket sized spiral notepad. She searched his eyes for truth. Behind the amber color and eagerness they seemed calculating. She could excuse that because he was brokering a deal for his boss. The dark eye circles weren’t confidence building, but his rugged face and smile seemed sincere. Yet with his ill-fitting clothes and the distinct odor of sweat not masked at all by a generous application of deodorant, something didn’t set right. How could he be partners with someone as sophisticated as Ansell Parker? she thought. But then she reminded herself—this is LA. Nothing is ever quite what it seems.

“I will, Mr. Alonso,” she said, and then turned her eyes away to find the side pocket of her purse in which to tuck the note.

“Tony, please … call me Tony.”

When she looked back up, the eyes she met no longer glistened with fervor. Their animated dance had petrified to a stone’s stare, their former radiance shrouded in shadow.

_____

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4 Born to Make the Kill

Like someone had fired a starting pistol, Natalie watched the set became a sudden flurry of activity. Voices shouted orders; hot stage lights went dark and were pulled away; cameras disappeared. Then the voice of a baseball announcer came over the speakers calling the second inning of the fourth game of the World Series. The Red Sox, Natalie remembered, were playing the St. Louis Cardinals, her dad’s favorite team, and the broadcaster said the Sox were ahead.

A man with a robe appeared and untied her hands from the headboard. After he finished, she sat up on the bed, and slipped the dressing gown over her shoulders.

“Nice work today, Natalie.”

Natalie looked up into Ansell’s deep aqua eyes. He stood just a few feet away and passed her a smile with a wink.

“I’m sure these scenes are difficult for you, but thanks for your patience.” He turned away.

“Thank you,” she said to his back. Ansell took a cell phone from his assistant and gave her an over-the-shoulder wave.

She stood and made her way to the makeup table. The same woman, Steph, who had created the magic of the macabre death mask for Natalie’s scene and who, a few minutes before, took care of the shiny spot on her forehead sat ready to remove the wounds from her body. 

Natalie took a seat next to her in a canvas chair. As she watched the injuries disappear one-by-one in the lighted mirror, she wondered if she would make her unwelcomed appearance. The only refection, though, was her own high cheekbones and natural twin dimples just above the few freckles sprinkled across her small celestial nose.

She turned her mind to Steph’s voice.

“I remember seeing you in a movie not long ago. You played a victim then too.”

“Let’s see,” Natalie responded, thick with derision, “would that be where I’m jogging in the woods and before I have a chance to scream an attacker slashes my throat, or where in the opening scene I’m thrown off the balcony of a high rise loft?”

“The first one.” Steph tipped her head and gave Natalie a sideways wink.

“Maybe dead is what I do best.”

As a girl, she thought breaking into major film was her destiny. She believed in her talent and had moved to LA because of it. In her sophomore year of high school, she had tried out for a minor role in “Annie Get Your Gun” and had been surprised when she landed the part of Annie Oakley. At first intimidated by the responsibility the lead carried, she soon found she loved everything about it: memorizing and delivering lines, rehearsals, wardrobe, makeup, and, of course, curtain calls. Her drama teacher had told her she was a natural, so over the next year, she continued to perform in school plays. In the summer after graduation, she won the lead role in an original play directed by the writer at a small Iowa City community theater. Not well written and directed even worse, it closed on opening night, but the local newspaper review gave her credit for salvaging the performance.

“Well, we’re done here,” Steph’s cheerful voice chirped its way back into Natalie’s ears. “Great shoot.”

Natalie looked into the mirror again and saw her gashes had all healed without a scar. Why can’t my career be mended so easily? she wondered.

“Thanks,” Natalie said. She stood and cinched the robe around her waist.

As she navigated toward a small corridor which led to the cramped changing area she had been assigned, she wove her way through the maze of lighting, speakers, booms, props and myriad other film-making equipment she couldn’t name. She longed for the day when her dressing room was a trailer on the back lot or maybe on location at some exotic foreign setting.

With her eyes not yet adjusted from staring into the lighted mirror, she thought she saw movement in the shadows a few feet away. She turned back to the security of the set, but found the place devoid of human activity. Even Steph had vanished along with the ballgame repartee. With the figure in the shadows, if someone had been there, and her only covering a thin bathrobe, she felt vulnerable and even more exposed than naked on the set.

Her heart clenched in her chest and she spun with wary apprehension back to face the darkness.

“Is someone there?” she asked. Her voice quavered like the squeal of a rat scurrying at an unexpected burst of light.

When no answer came and no further movement caught her eye, she took a deep breath, pulled the robe tight around her body with both hands and entered the hallway. She set a brisk determined pace toward the room. 

As she approached the door, a dim light overhead illuminated a plain silver handle. She reached for the knob. Out of the shadows, a man’s hand brushed over hers and took hold of it first. Her heart already about to burst on the brink of panic, she gasped, drew her hand away, and took an involuntary step backwards.

As the door opened, the light poured out from the room inside and revealed the face of a teenage boy about her age. He wore a blunt haircut that looked like he had fallen asleep in the barber’s chair with a World War II Nazi combat helmet on his head. The light brown hair framed a face she recognized. Despite her inability to recall his name, she felt the tension begin to lift like sun-blanched fog.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” she said, happy her voice had returned to normal. “Still working as a grip?”

“Yeah,” he said and passed her a timid smile, “always behind the camera.”

His eyes dropped toward the floor, and then after a moment he rolled them up. She met them a second time. A look that caught her by surprise scurried across his eyes, and then dissolved back into a shy smile. With it, the sudden twist like a battlefield tourniquet returned to her chest. She felt she should throw the door between them—now. She stepped through the opening and took the inside knob in her hand.

“Sorry if I frightened you. Great scene, by the way,” he said and turned to walk away.

“Thank you,” she called after him as he disappeared into the shadows.

When the sound of his athletic shoes shrieked against the concrete, confident he’d left, she shut the door and threw the lock. As she started toward the shower, the taut sensation in her chest started to relax. But even distracted by adjusting the water temperature and hanging her robe on a hook, she couldn’t quite shake the darkness that emanated from the ephemeral look in the boy’s eyes when it transformed in that flicker from disarming to deceiving.

_____

Can’t wait for more; go to Amazon.com to add this to your bookshelf.
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© Jearl Rugh 2012

All Rights Reserved

3 Born to Make the Kill

Four Years Later


The nameless victim lay motionless. Blood had surged from the severed carotid artery and pooled on the linens. A thick moist scab formed dark red edges around the fatal laceration.

Detective Malcort stepped through the doorway where he had stopped and continued his scan of the modest hotel business suite. Investigators busied themselves snapping photographs, dusting for fingerprints and searching for DNA donations. It appeared no one had yet disturbed the body. The white rope that tied the hands to the headboard indicated the night may have started with a sex game, but the whisper of terror still etched into the smoky eyes staring deep into eternity showed that this partner didn’t know the sport required human sacrifice. Yet, in contrast to the carnage of the scene, with an unspoiled white sheet draped over one leg of the otherwise nude body, it appeared she had slipped undisturbed into a peaceful slumber.

Malcort sauntered across the room toward the remains as if strolling through the park on a fall day. He folded his arms across his chest and turned his attention to the woman who kneeled at the bedside examining one of several chest wounds.

“Poor thing, doesn’t look like she put up much of a struggle,” he said. “What can you tell me, Doc?”

Natalie Beaumont listened again to the dialog. She had it memorized. This was the fifth take this afternoon. Someone would miss a mark, forget a line or they just wanted another angle to show someone’s better side.

As she held her breath and continued a vacant stare into the hot lights a few feet away, a recurring question confronted her. Is the road to stardom really paved by girls playing dead?

Over the last few months she had been stymied over her floundering career. She had newspaper clippings proving her talent and she was a young, vibrant eighteen year-old—almost nineteen—but it frustrated her that while she still waited to be discovered, others showed up in town, appeared on the set and became an overnight success.

Since she hated every minute of the social economics of high school and the strict rules at home, she had enrolled in extra classes at the community college and took summer school so she could graduate a year early. Between school, studies and chores, to scrape enough money into savings for her emancipation, she took orders and bussed tables at McDonalds. Then, as she boarded the westbound Greyhound, her mom, with the same condemning tone she always used, said, “You’re just a kid.” Mom and Dad approved of very few of her decisions—but this is my life, she had thought. Her choices were hers and she knew just what she wanted.

“Cut!” shouted Salvador Sliman, the director. “Miss, don’t move, we need to reset the camera. It’ll only be a moment.” He turned toward a grip and yelled, “There’s a shadow over here. You, fix it!”

Natalie allowed herself to breathe once more. She heard someone move toward the lights and the squeak of rubber soled shoes scuff against the cement floor.

When her agent had called and she realized she would be doing a scene with Ansell Parker, the actor playing Detective Malcort, she hoped this would put her career on a more ‘aspiring-actress’ tack. One of the most influential actors in Hollywood, he had a reputation for discovering beautiful women and promoting their careers.

She caught his back as he walked off the set and felt her spirit wane disappointed he hadn’t spoken to her except in character. The day’s not over. Who knows, maybe his people will call my person. Amused at her silly joke, a smile dimpled her cheeks.

With the powerful lights in her eyes, she continued to watch the stage lamp as it seemed to move to the right position propelled only by a pair of dingy athletic shoes. Now, with the lighting set, the camera picked up a shiny spot on her forehead.

“Makeup,” Salvador shouted.

 A young woman appeared out of the darkness from behind the bright lights with a brush and powder.

After she finished, Salvador said, “Places everyone.”

The actors moved back to the set and found their marks. Natalie took in a breath, held it and fixed her dead stare on an object just at the edge of her view.


“Action!”

She had been waiting for this scene—just her, face to face with Ansell. Her pulse began to escalate as he stepped into her peripheral vision. He was too old for her, at least that’s what her mother would say—probably mid to late twenties. When he first hit the screen as a teenager, his squared jawbone and rugged smile set girl’s hearts pattering all over the globe. Natalie’s was no exception. The difference now was that, while the other girls only saw him on the movie screen, Natalie was only a few feet away, and he was live in a vibrant color.

Ansell walked to where her head rested and knelt beside the bed.

“May I,” he said to the ME and looked toward the actress who now kneeled on the bed.

“You can have the body,” she said and slipped out of the camera shot.

Ansell turned his eyes to Natalie. She felt them run the full length of her exposed body and without humiliation submitted to their heat.

“It’s such a shame,” he said and brushed a lock of blond hair from her cheek. He took her face in his bare hand. “You’re such a beautiful girl, well, woman, obviously. Why’d you end up here? Who did this to you?”

With the warmth of his hand on her cheek, she had to fight to stop a shudder that threatened to skip down her spine.

“Tell me who did this,” he said and looked into her eyes, “so he doesn’t have a chance to take someone else as lovely as you away from us.”

Natalie continued her blank look, not blinking, not breathing. He tilted her head, leaned forward and brought his face toward hers. She sensed something not in the script about to happen, and then felt his soft lips press and linger on her mouth. Every instinct Natalie possessed demanded she return the kiss, but she held character and with great effort controlled every facial muscle.

“I promise you,” he said as he retreated from her oval lips, “I’ll find your killer and bring him to justice.”

“Cut!” Salvador shouted.

Natalie’s eyes flicked in the direction of the voice as Salvador leaned forward and shot himself out of his chair on a collision course with Ansell. His arms waved in front of him like two frantic tentacles grasping for the next meal.

“What the hell was that?”

“Inspiration,” Ansell replied. “It’s such an intimate moment, the victim and her … vindicator.”

“Inspiration? Why would a detective kiss a dead girl?”

Natalie’s head swirled. The tender kiss felt so personal and spontaneous. It was like the beginning of a long-desired romance that up to this point had been one-sided. His lips had remained on hers for several seconds. Even now she could feel the pressure of his mouth and longed for more. She dared hope they’d need another take and held her position.

“And why not, it’s a kiss of ... promise.”


“Promise?” Salvador shouted, and Natalie could see the veins in his neck begin to swell.

“Yes, promise,” Ansell continued in his familiar slow manner with a hint of Aussie slipping through. “I’m making a promise to her. I’ll find and punish the bastard who did this.”

Salvador’s glare had such intensity that had his eyes been able to fire targeted heat-seeking missiles, Ansell’s eye sockets would have been reduced to black smoldering craters. Rather, Ansell smiled while everyone on the crew, except Natalie, held their breath and waited the tempest of Salvador’s rage to subside.

After a minute of graveyard silence, Salvador said with a deep acquiescent sigh, “Okay, it stays.” As the enraged purple on his face faded to its usual pallor, he continued with sarcasm biting each word, “A promise kiss, huh? Okay, print! That’s it for today.”

_____

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© Jearl Rugh 2012

All Rights Reserved

2 Born to Make the Kill

They had ridden several hundred yards into the field, and about the time her front wheel came even with his back tire, Alex slammed on his brakes. His bike skidded broadside to a stop. She braked, too, and a cloud of dust billowed over them. When the debris settled, she could see that they were in small clearing in the midst of the corn. She glanced out over the top of the three-foot high plants. With the soft breeze that tossed her hair, it looked like a rolling sea of gentle green waves spread out as far as she could see.

He dropped his bicycle to the ground, caught her eye again with that odd smile, and said, “Well, here we are.”

Her dad was an Iowa corn farmer, so she grew up between the rows. This didn’t look like anything special, just a patch where the corn hadn’t sprouted. “Why here?”

He stepped toward her. “You know,” he said and twitched his eyebrows. His hands slipped over the chrome handle bars of her bike.

A tentacle of panic cinched her throat. She checked the threatening tremor behind her voice and commanded, “Let go of my bike!”

 With a sudden twist, he pushed her bicycle down throwing her to the ground. Her knee slammed into the bike’s frame.

 “Ouch,” she yelped as she rolled from under it. She stopped on her back and grabbed her knee. “Why’d you do that?”

Before she could sit up or roll away, he jumped, straddled her with his legs, and pinned her upper arms to the ground with his hands. She read the intentions in his face, and felt a scream rise from the center of panic. He had chosen this isolated spot, she realized, so her protests would go unheard, so she choked a cry back. Since he outweighed her by at least twenty pounds, and played varsity football, she knew she would be unable to force him off of her. She watched his eyes as they danced with anticipation.

He slid his hands across her forearms until he grasped hold of her hands, and then brought them together over her head. She tried to resist but he was too strong. He ground them into the dirt and snatched both her wrists in his left hand. With his right, he released the snap on her blue jeans and lowered the zipper.

“I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at me lately,” he said as he grabbed for the waistband of her jeans. “I know you want this as much as I do.”

“You didn’t have to attack me, Alex,” she said and forced a demure smile. “It doesn’t have to be like this, you know. If you want to do it, why don’t you just ask?”

Alex mouth dropped open and he cocked his head with a “you’re kidding me” expression slithering behind his eyes.

“You think I don’t want it?” Amy continued. “I’ve never been with a boy. Don’t you think I’m curious, too?”

He rolled back on his knees and slowly released her hands.

“Don’t you need to take your pants off?” she asked as she brought her hands down and rested them on his thighs.

Alex continued a wary glare but reached for his belt buckle.

“You can’t take them off if you’re on your knees.”

 Alex stayed where he was, finished unbuckling the belt, and then asked, “What about you? You need to take your clothes off.”

“I can’t when you’re sitting on me, Alex.”

 She could see his mind was somewhere between “I can’t believe my luck” and “If I move she’ll run away.” He rose cautiously to his feet. She saw that his hands were prepared to grab her if she made a sudden move so, for a moment, Amy stayed on the ground. Once he slipped off his shoes and jeans, dropping them to the dirt, she stood and took a step toward him.

“Can I help you with those?” she asked, and reached for the waistband of his underwear.

He stood motionless and looked to his hips where she placed her hands. As she slipped her thumbs beneath the elastic band, he closed his eyes and rolled his head back. Then, with a swift jerk, she thrust the full force of her right knee into his groin.

“Ah,” he shrieked. His eyes flew open, filled with tears, and fixed on hers with a puzzled and desperate glare. Then, as limp as boiled spaghetti, he doubled over and collapsed to his knees in the dirt. There, he moaned, and rocked, and massaged the injury.

Amy was wroth and glared back at him. She thought Alex was her friend but now to see his true nature filled her with disillusionment. His morals weren’t a step above others like he pretended. He was just as exploitive as the other boys who had so recently begun to objectify her.

“I don’t believe this, Alex,” she said as she snapped and zipped her pants. “You! Of all people.”

 Alex struggled to plead, “Don’t…tell…my dad…my mother.”

She shook her head, grabbed his jeans and righted her bicycle. When she pressed her foot down hard on the pedal, the back wheel spun and threw dirt and pebbles into a rooster tail that showered Alex.

“I won’t need to,” she shouted over her shoulder as she tore out toward the corn row. “I think your dad will have lots of questions when he hears you’ve been running around town in your underpants.” Through the dust she could see he probably didn’t hear—he still clutched his crotch and now rolled in the dirt—but that didn’t matter. She had made her point.

Twenty minutes later, as she passed through town on her way home, she stopped just long enough to toss his denim pants on the steps of State Street Church.

_____

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1 Born to Make the Kill

 

Amy Westerhill glanced across the classroom to where Alex Daniels sat a couple of rows over and two seats forward. He poured over the notebook on his desk, and didn’t seem to sense her fawn over the side of his face. She sketched the outline of his cheekbone and nose with her smoke-gray eyes while his busy pen scrawled down lecture notes.

The last time she tuned in, their US History teacher yammered on about Nathan Hale and his heroic contribution to the Revolutionary War. At least she thought that was today’s subject. For now, the din from the front of the classroom might well have been the monotone drone from the living room TV while the local anchor read the evening news—just a murmur in the background. What did she care about some guy who died over two hundred years ago when the rest of her life sat just across the room?

She tore her eyes away from Alex long enough to check the time. Her heart took a heavy beat and she had to catch a deep breath. This class period would be over in minutes. Not only would the bell signal the end of the school day, but it would also launch the next stage of her life. And that couldn’t come soon enough.

Earlier that week, while she helped her mom snap string beans from the garden for canning, Amy had asked for the day off from her chores on Friday so she could spend the afternoon with a friend. Of course, since dating wasn’t allowed until she turned sixteen, she didn’t admit the friend was a boy. In fact, when her mom asked her friend’s name, Amy tried a skill she had been working on—misdirected facts. Her mom was not easily tricked, but Amy forged ahead with nothing to lose but privilege for a week or so; such a small price for such a promising prize. Amy drew her eyes down toward the green beans in her lap, snapped the stem off one, and tossed it in the pile destined for compost.

“Alex,” she said. At the top edge of her vision, as she felt for the other end of the bean, she watched for her mother’s reaction. As expected, she jerked her head up and glared at Amy. Amy rolled her eyes up with an innocent, dimpled smile.

Her mom snarled, “Alex?” The weathered creases of her face were ruled with contempt and judgment. 

Now came the true test, bare-faced eye contact while telling a full-on lie. Pull this one off and a new world opened up for the fourteen year old. “Oh, not that Alex, Mom,” she said and stretched her smile a little broader. She shook her head side to side as if her mother’s assumption was completely without merit. “She’s a girl in my history class.”

 Actually it was that Alex. Amy had known him for three years, but he had always ignored her. She thought it because she was scrawny, immature, and two years behind him in school. Her mother had said Amy was a late bloomer and seemed happy about it. If she could dress Amy and fix her hair so she looked like an elementary school-girl until the day she graduated high school, so much the better. But since Amy got her first period a few months ago, and saw in the mirror the rapid changes her body had already undergone, she had also noticed that the same boys who used to strut past her in the hall like she didn’t exist, now turned when she walked by and undressed her with their leers. Besides, this didn’t really qualify as a date anyway. It’s not like we’re going as a couple to Dairy Queen, the county fair, or a school dance, she had justified in her mind. They were just going to take a bike ride together.

After the bell rang ending class, she and Alex walked to the bike rack. Amy had thought about this moment all day … all week, and had a vision of him holding her hand or at least talking to me. But rather, Alex, a step ahead, went straight to his bike like he either had a fire to go to … or was nervous. She understood that. Nerves had taken her as well, but she tried to keep them in check with a sweet smile she hoped appeared genuine. If he’d look at me anyway.

“Everything alright?” Amy asked when she caught up with him at the rack. 

He didn’t answer, but retrieved a key from his pocket and unlocked the wheel. “Follow me,” he said, and then tore out of the school yard.

Amy watched puzzled for a couple of seconds, and then fumbled with her lock. When she got to the street, he was waiting.

“Ready?” Alex asked. He gave her a strange grin she had never seen on his face before.

She ignored it and pulled the pins holding her hair in a tight roll. With a shake of her head and a shoulder shrug, she said, “Sure, let’s go.”

She sped off ahead of him down State Street, passed her church, Henry’s Hardware and Two Brother’s Grocery. The wind tousled her shoulder-blade length blond hair as it flew behind her like golden angel wings. The afternoon’s dry heat blew across her freckled cheeks and chapped her oval lips. She moistened them with the tip of her tongue.

Once they reached the edge of town, Alex took the lead, and for the next several miles they raced down country roads lined with cornfields. Ahead of Amy a couple of bike lengths, he made a sudden right turn she didn’t expect. She trusted him, so she kept in tight and followed him between two rows of young corn plants. She drew a breath of warm air expecting to smell the familiar fresh scent of the immature stalks but rather got a lung full of dust from the dirt kicked up by Alex’s bike-tires. That forced a cough and she peddled faster, gaining on him a little.

_____

Can’t wait for more; go to Amazon.com to add this to your bookshelf.

For more about me, visit http://www.jearlrugh.com/ or Facebook

© Jearl Rugh 2012

All Rights Reserved