Read Smoke and Shadows for Free Online

part she was playing. Unexpectedly bothered by this, he pulled the day’s side from his pocket and stepped back into the light—nearly stepping on Mason who’d apparently followed him. “Sorry.”
    The actor’s lip curled. “Why don’t you just open the door?”
    â€œWell, she could be . . .”
    â€œCould be?” His tone was mocking and Tony realized with some dismay that the young actress was about to pay the price for Mason almost having been caught with a cancer stick on the soundstage. “I don’t care what she could be; she should be on the set right now and I have no intention of waiting any longer.” He curled his fingers around the cheap aluminum doorknob, twisted, twisted harder, and yanked.
    With a rush of cool air, shadow spilled out onto the soundstage, pooling on the concrete, running into the cracks and dips in the floor.
    A body followed.
    She’d been pressed up against the door, her right arm tucked across the small of her back, her fingers clamped around the doorknob. They retained their hold as she fell backward. She dangled for a moment, then cheap nails pulled out of the chipboard and with a shriek of metal against wood, the door came off its hinges.
    A small bounce as the back of her head impacted with concrete.
    Enough of a bounce to rearrange her features into the nobody’s home expression of death.
    Enough to wipe away the expression the body had worn on its way to the floor.
    Terror.
    She looked as though she’d been scared to death.
    Mason scowled down at his errant guest star. “Catherine? Get up!”
    â€œShe’s dead.” Tony shoved the sides back in his pocket and unhooked his microphone.
    â€œWhat? Don’t be ridiculous; she doesn’t die until tomorrow afternoon.”
    â€œAnd her name was Nikki Waugh.” It was the name he’d almost heard out in the office. He’d realized it the moment he’d read it on the cast list.
    â€œWas?” Mason sounded like he was about to fall apart, like his hindbrain knew what the more civilized bits refused to acknowledge, so Tony let it go. Reality would bite him in the ass soon enough.
    At least Nikki’s shadow seemed to be staying where it belonged.

    â€œYou seem remarkably calm about this, Mr. Foster.”
    RCMP Constable Elson said Mr. Foster the way Hugo Weaving said Mr. Anderson in The Matrix . Maybe it was subconscious, but Tony was willing to bet it was on purpose—a guy in a uniform with delusions of grandeur. He shrugged. “I spent a few years living on the streets in Toronto. I’ve seen dead bodies. Four or five poor fucks freeze every winter.” No point in mentioning the baby soul-sucked by a dead Egyptian wizard.
    â€œLiving on the streets? You got a record?”
    He didn’t think they were legally allowed to ask him that, but they’d find out as soon as they ran him so what the hell. “Small stuff. You want to talk to someone in Toronto about it, call Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci at violent crimes. We go back.”
    â€œViolent crimes isn’t small stuff, Mr. Foster.”
    â€œI just said he knew me, Officer, not that he’d booked me.”
    â€œYou being smart with us?”
    There were a hundred answers to that. Unfortunately, most of them were not smart, so Tony settled for a sincere but not too sincere, “No.”
    The constable opened his mouth again, but his partner cut him off. “Let’s just go over this one last time, shall we? Ms. Waugh was late coming onto the set. You went to get her, followed by Mr. Reed. He pulled open the door. Ms. Waugh fell out, still holding the handle. The door pulled off and she hit the floor. You told Adam Paelous, the first assistant director, who told Peter Hudson, the director, who called 911. Correct?”
    â€œYeah, that’s right.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t call because . . .”
    â€œNo one carries their phone