Another Thing to Fall Read Online Free Page A

Tess thought she caught a flicker of spiteful enjoyment in the timid voice.
    “What? Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
    “I just found out. I got a cell call that Selene had shown up in makeup. Two hours late, but she’s there.”
    “Where was she? How did she get to set if she missed her driver?”
    Greer raised one shoulder, a timid halfhearted shrug. “Taxi, I think. Meanwhile, there was another one of those… incidents. A trash can fire on Fort Avenue, which closed the street down when firefighters responded, which is part of the reason she was so late. Or so she said. Apparently, it didn’t occur to Selene that she could get out of the cab and walk the last block here.”
    “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He grabbed his phone from an interior pocket of his fleece vest even as it started to ring again. “I’m losing you, you’re breaking up,” he shouted as he ran from the trailer.
    “Tough gig,” Tess said.
    “Oh, he loves what he does.”
    “No, I mean for you, being his assistant.”
    “Are you kidding?” Greer’s eyes widened for once, and they turned out to be quite pretty, a vivid pale blue set off by dark lashes and brows. “I’m really lucky. I started off as an intern during the preproduction phase for the pilot, opening mail and doing other odd jobs, then got promoted to the writer’s office assistant when the network picked up the show. I
jumped
at the chance to be Mr. Tumulty’s assistant when the job opened up.”
    “What happened to his last assistant?”
    “She left. She was a local.” The latter said with great derision.
    “Aren’t you from here?”
    “How could you tell?” She seemed at once insulted and shocked.
    Tess considered what would be the kindest way to reply. “Because I am. Like knows like, right?”
    “Well, I may have been born here, but I’m not going to be stuck here,” Greer said.
    “What about—” Tess gestured at the ring.
    “Everything can be negotiated. That’s one of the first things I learned, working for Fli — Mr. Tumulty. If you know what you want, you can get it. The trick is you have to know what you want.” She gave Tess an appraising look, and it was disconcerting to see that calculated, pragmatic gaze in such a young face. “And I know that—”
    The door to the trailer opened, and Greer let the conversation drop.
    “Don’t you think you should check to see if Miss Monaghan’s clothes are ready?” Flip asked, and Greer rushed out before Tess could say that nothing, not even Under Armour, could possibly dry that fast. Scurried, actually. She reminded Tess of a mouse, one of the animated ones that had been so devoted to Cinderella. Tess had always wondered what was in it for the mice. Did they really think they were going to get to live in the palace once all was said and done?
    “I wanted a moment with you in private,” Flip said.
    Tess nodded. The monstrous pink bathrobe had now risen up to her jawline, so her chin disappeared for a moment, catching in the collar.
    “The thing about Selene — Greer doesn’t know this — only the other producers and I are aware of this, but… there was an incident when we returned here to film this summer. A suicide.”
    “Selene attempted suicide?”
    “No, no, no. It was a local man, Wilbur Grace, with no known connection to the production. He hung himself in his kitchen. Hung? Hanged?” Tess let Flip work out the grammatical possibilities for himself. “Hung,” he decided. “Police came to me, the other exec producer, Ben Marcus, and my unit production manager, Lottie MacKenzie. The man had some things in his possession, things that appeared to come from digging through the trash at the production office. He also had multiple photographs of Selene, taken during location shooting on the pilot, last winter.”
    “A stalker?”
    “Possibly. And a bit of a creep, based on some other things police found.”
    “Creep?”
    “Let’s just say he had an eye for the kiddies. As I said,