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Someplace like her soul.
She couldn’t even claim to be mad at him anymore. Well, nottoomad. Though she’d been very confused Monday, eventually she’d understood that he’d been right. He’d said exactly what she would have been thinking an hour later, when she wasn’t warm in his bed, still glowing from their incredible night.
That should have made everything a-okay. They were both with the program, in the game, on the same path.
And miserable as hell.
Though they were amicable on the set whenever he was around, and quiet but not unfriendly at home, it wouldn’t last. Yes, they’d formed a truce, managed to pull off that next-to-impossible trick of being on fairly good terms with someone after having incredible sex with them. But the tension was building again. It had been since that shared moment Wednesday morning in the kitchen when she’d been in her nightie and he’d been in the towel and they’d both been naked and panting in their minds. Again last night, they’d been reminded of what was at stake.
There’d always been such heat between them. Instant, unrelenting chemistry. It still made her shake when she thought about how their stares had met, held, asked and answered.Yesandno. They wanted each other badly, but they weren’t going to make the same mistake all over again.
“Yeah, right,” she muttered. Mistakes were made to be…well,made.Weren’t they?
She forced thoughts of Mick and their private life out of her mind as she arrived at the trailer. Jacey was there to greet her. The younger woman looked a little fresher, brighter than usual. And, if Caro wasn’t mistaken, she didn’t have all that white stuff on her skin or the super black makeup around her eyes. Of course, the short dark hair was still spiked, and her clothes were strictly black on black. But it was a change, at least.
“You’re very chipper this morning,” Caro said as she got out of her car and walked to the entrance of the trailer.
Jacey shrugged but wouldn’t meet Caro’s eye. “Had a good run, that’s all.”
Surprised, because Jacey looked anything like the health nut type, Caro raised a brow. “Running?”
“Sure.”
Just because she had a sneaking suspicion about something, Caro quietly asked, “Alone?”
Bull’s-eye. Jacey’s face pinkened, making her look even younger than her age, which was already pretty young. So young, Caro had sometimes wondered how the girl had gotten as far as she had in Hollywood. Since she and Jacey seemed to have struck up an odd sort of sorority on the set—because of the good old boys who surrounded them—maybe someday she’d ask her.
“Well…”
“Anybody I know?” Caro asked, opening the door and leading Jacey into the trailer. She flipped on the light switch, smothered a groan at the pile of faxes that had come in overnight and reached for the coffee machine.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Surprised, Caro swung around and looked at her. Jacey wanted her romantic advice?
“I hate having to discuss my private business.…” Okay, not a girl gab session. Jacey was obviously concerned about something.
“I’ve sort of been spending some time with Digg.” Now Caro got it. Jacey had fallen for the handsome, heroic fireman who had all the female contestants—and the male host—oohing and aahing. Hopefully the TV audience would tune in to satisfy their own need to ooh and aah, as well.
Jacey continued. “It’s very low key, but someone saw us coming back from running today and I was just afraid there might be trouble. I had a cryptic note shoved under the door to my room.”
“Note? What’d it say?”
“Nothing important. I tossed it. But I figured I ought to let you know, get this thing out in the open, in case this creates a problem.”
Caro thought about it. “I’m not sure. I mean, we’re notThe Bachelor.None of the women on the set has any right to be jealous—there’s no competition for Digg for heaven’s sake.”
Jacey probably heard Caro’s unspoken concern. “But?”
Caro sighed, then leaned her hip against the desk, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “But you are a member of the crew. If Digg were to be the winner, other cast members could accuse you of helping him because of your status as an employee.”
Jacey’s jaw clenched and she stiffened. “I don’t even know who the killer is.”
True. Caro, Renauld, the writers and the killer were the only ones in on the truth.
“I thought for sure it was that slimy car salesman from Pittsburgh,” Jacey added. “But when he got murdered at the grain warehouse the other day, that blew my theory.”
The car salesman was victim number nine of the Derryville Demon, if you counted the three original fake victims from Sophie’s house. The cast was now down to ten. Not as magic as thirteen, but at least becoming more manageable. And another would bite the dust by the end of today.
