him. He was a last-minute replacement.”
“And the cops interviewed him, but they didn’t interview you two?” Idiots, her tone of voice suggested.
Hervé sniffed. “Werewolves, both of them.”
“Figures.” Sailor paused, then asked, “Was Gina seeing someone?”
Melanie shook her head. “Nope. She broke up with Feral Jones, the rapper, just three weeks ago.”
“I thought she was seeing Alexander Cavendish,” Sailor said.
Hervé held up a hand. “We do not speak that name in this trailer. Not since Christmas. And after Feral she went into an ‘I’m swearing off men’ phase. Romantic detox. Could barely kiss her idiot costar on camera.”
“Cops interviewed him, of course,” Melanie said. “Waste of time. Gina didn’t like half the people on this set.”
Hervé shuddered. “Certainly not to sleep with. No one here is in her league. If she had sex that night, then some maniac forced himself on her. And security was tight, so it wouldn’t be someone off the street. It had to be an insider.”
“That could be fifty people,” Sailor asked.
“Fewer,” Melanie said. “Most everyone had wrapped before second meal.”
Meal breaks, Declan knew, happened every six hours on a film set, so “second meal” signaled a long—and expensive—shooting day.
“Unless he snuck into her trailer early in the day and stayed hidden. Transpo was supposed to keep it locked, but—” Hervé shuddered with distaste. “Teamsters.”
“Was she in good health?” Sailor asked.
“Darling,” Hervé said, “she was at the absolute top of her game.”
“Enemies?”
Melanie said, “Jealous actresses. Jealous ex-girlfriends of her current boyfriends. Nothing abnormal.”
“She drank champagne, right?”
Hervé looked as if he might weep. “Cristal.”
Sailor looked at Declan. “Can you think of anything else?”
He was surprised she asked. She seemed to have forgotten his presence. “Did she know Charlotte Messenger?” he asked.
“Socially, yeah,” Melanie answered. “Not enough to go the funeral.”
“How about the agent?” Sailor asked. “From GAA? Did Gina know her?”
“Kelly Ellory,” Hervé said. “Yes. Gina was a GAA client. Kelly visited the set. Lovely woman. Excellent hair. I trimmed her bangs for her.”
“And the student from Cal Arts, the other woman who died?”
“We’d never heard of her.” Henry grabbed a box of tissues and pulled out several, blotting his eyes. “You probably don’t cry, do you, Miss Elven Keeper?”
“Not much.”
“Lucky. I’m so tired of crying, I could throw up.”
“Anything else you can think of that might help us?” Sailor asked.
Melanie looked at her. “I’ll tell you something I heard from an old vamp actor. This disease they say they died from? It isn’t new. It’s been around for centuries.”
Sailor glanced at Declan. “But we’ve interviewed doctors—Others—and they never mentioned anything like that.”
“Well, they’re not going to find it in their medical journals,” Melanie said. “Maybe you should just interview someone really old.”
Pete came in to say, “Hair and Makeup wanted on set,” and they all walked out together, Melanie and Hervé toward an array of huge lights, Declan and Sailor toward the parking area.
The canyon was close to freezing, and Declan put his jacket around Sailor’s shoulders. While doing so, he used a little sleight of hand to extract his friend Gary’s card from the back pocket of her jeans.
* * *
“You didn’t tell them about the attack on you,” Declan said, driving back down the road. “That you have the disease.”
“Why would I?” Sailor asked.
“Because they’ll hear about it,” he said. “Better to have heard it from you.”
“Does it matter?”
He shrugged. “It’s just being straight with people. You got information from them, but you didn’t give them anything, even just something to make them feel like insiders. Once they realize that, they’ll feel used.”
“I didn’t want to get into it. I’m feeling pretty healthy right now anyway.”
He glanced at her. “If the killings continue, the Elven will take action. You talked about finding the killer and cutting his heart out of his body. That’s not just a myth. Your Elven will literally do that. The most civilized among them can turn primal when threatened. I’ve seen it. Things are going to get ugly between the species, and now there are two vampires who have less reason to trust the Elven or their Keepers tonight than when they woke this morning.”
She’d been focused on what she could get from Melanie and Hervé, and from Gary, the producer. It had been shortsighted, she realized, and not particularly kind. Her father never would have taken that approach. “Damn. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Next time you will be.”
“I don’t know, Declan. Sometimes I think I’ll never get the hang of this. I’m not sure I have the instincts.”
“Because you’ve been at it