the few gunshot wounds,” Wade told him. “Granger, Kord, and Peter have formed a chain gang of prisoners. Most are still unconscious, but they’re coming around.”
“Who did this?” Skye asked what everyone wanted to know as she pushed herself up from the ground.
“You’re good, but you’re going to be exhausted once the adrenaline wears off,” Wade warned her.
“Then let’s get to the bottom of this while I’m amped up. I can’t believe we just jumped out of a helicopter.”
Trent pushed himself up and they trudged their way up the yard. Sure enough, around fifteen men were tied up and being guarded by the knitting club as Gavin and Ridge treated the wounded on the other side of the lawn.
“What the hell is he doing?” Trent asked of Mason. He was getting in the faces of the men tied up screaming at them.
“Where did he come from?” Skye asked with confusion. “It was like it was right out of an action movie.”
Trent shrugged. The man wasn’t a good fighter, but at least he had helped. Peter, Kord, and Granger stood off in a tight circle and Trent and his group joined him. “What’s going on?” Trent asked.
His friends slapped Trent on the back as they joined the group. They then gave him and Skye a ten for their leap out of the helicopter but only gave Trent an eight for his leap onto the helicopter.
“It would have been cooler if you hadn’t almost slipped off the landing rail,” Kord said with a shrug.
“Who are these guys?” Ryker asked, bringing them back to the current situation.
“We were hoping Skye could tell us,” Granger growled at her in a way that made Trent instantly defensive.
“Me?” Skye asked. “I’d love to know who they are and who is trying to kidnap me.”
Suddenly Granger, Kord, and Peter didn’t look like her friends anymore. Instead, they looked pissed off and all that anger was directed at her.
Peter shoved a handful of IDs at her. “Please tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”
“What does it look like?” Skye asked in confusion. What did she do to lose their trust?
“It looks like you hired them to stage your kidnapping,” Granger told her as he glared at her. Edie gasped and Trent instantly got in Granger’s face defending Skye. As they traded barbs and Granger told Trent to back off, Skye looked down at the IDs in her hands and gasped as she went from one card to the next.
It wasn’t the driver’s license that drew her attention. It was the other ID card that did. It was a standard union card she knew well. “They’re all stuntmen,” Skye said in stunned surprise.
“That’s right. They say they were hired for a new movie in which you were starring as a kidnap victim,” Peter said, his tone deadly serious and accusatory. Gone was the man who had tried to protect her.
“Me? They say I hired them?” Skye was shaking her head. This couldn’t be real.
“They think they’re in the interrogation part of the movie,” Granger said, gesturing to the group tied up, sitting there as Mason talked with the knitting club. “We can’t get them to break character. However, the ones who got shot are all too happy to talk. Only they don’t know who hired them. It was done through someone who claimed to be a casting assistant. They were sent a script and told to use their talent to stage a mock kidnapping. They were all sent tickets to Charleston and were met by some director’s assistant. They were given the supplies they needed to raid a house and get the actress. Then they were to fly you back to Charleston and drop you off—end of scene. When asked about cameras, directors, and movie sets, they said the director’s assistant told them the cameras were all hidden to make it appear as real and gritty as possible. They would all be there, but hidden. They wanted one long, continuous take so they wouldn’t interrupt unless they had to.”
“It’s not possible. I didn’t hire them. This doesn’t make sense. None of this makes any sense. No one shoots movies like that. Then there’s the big question of why would I stage my own kidnapping?” Skye felt herself flipping out. She had to be dazed after jumping out of the helicopter and dreaming this all up.
“Because you’re addicted to the Hollywood spotlight? Because you needed to drum up attention to get that role you wanted so badly?” Granger asked