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and twenty-one. The female lead, Brittany Summers, had leveraged her implants into a role on a struggling cable series, and the unknown male lead had beenhired because of ripped abs and his ability to command a Jet Ski. I was the only real actor on the payroll.
    Escobar had offered me the part of the brilliant black marine biologist who happens to be staying at the resort when the infection breaks out. Since my character makes the mistake of hooking up with one of the white girls, I’m one of the first to get infected, and I’m the face of Evil who, at the climax, must die so that the nice white couple can survive.
    There won’t be a dry seat in the house.
    Even after shooting began, I still wasn’t sure why Escobar had handpicked me for his movie, but I wrote it off as micro-management. My past as a male escort to Hollywood’s desperate housewives had leaked out—although I still denied the rumors to my father—and I figured Escobar thought my name would add salacious sazón to his project.
    Whatever. Work is work. As my contact in the spy business—let’s call her Marsha—liked to remind me, I was still a whore. Longer story.
    I finally had a mid-morning set call late enough to accommodate Chela’s schedule, so she agreed to come to work with me at the Star Island mansion that doubled as a resort on the fictitious Isla del Sueño, the outbreak’s Ground Zero.
    It was Chela’s second or third visit to a set since she’d been living with me, but this was the first time she’d dressed as if she had an actor’s chair waiting with her name on it. Her faux-designer sunglasses covered half her face. She wore white short-shorts, a white tank top with spaghetti straps, and a bare midriff barely covered by a sheer beach wrap. Chela had mastered stilettos in a way April never might. She’d lathered herself in glistening baby oil.
    Now I understood why fathers are afraid to let their daughters out of the house.
    â€œWhat?” she said, pretending she didn’t understand my scowl. “Maybe he’ll offer me a part.”
    A part of his what? Escobar’s eyes were feasting on the young women on his set, and I’d heard rumors that he and Brittany had late-night rehearsals. Call me a hypocrite, but Chela’s past made me want to keep her far away from show business. I knew how easy it would be for her to slip into her old habits. “It’s cold in that house,” I said. “Put on some jeans.”
    â€œYou said everybody’s wearing bikinis.”
    â€œI hear them complaining. The AC’s too high.” I was lying, and poorly.
    Chela ignored me, climbing into my rented red Grand Prix. She’d barely listened to me before she was eighteen, but now she’d dropped the charade entirely. It was hard for me to get indignant over a story I’d spun out of thin air.
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Just don’t run shivering to me.”
    I was already sorry I’d brought Chela to Miami.
    But not as sorry as I would be.

    I would never let anyone shoot a movie in my house, period. Every day on the set, I wondered what the owners had been thinking when they said, “Sure, come trash my mansion.”
    A cracked floor tile here. A crushed flower bed there. No one went out of their way to be destructive, but it just takes too many people and cameras and generators and miles of cable to make a movie. The wide circular cobbled driveway glistened with at least fifty cars parked around the fountain. A crushed Coke can carelessly kicked into the rock garden was only the day’s first offense. I picked up the can to dispose of properly. Some people have no respect.
    The house was like an Italian palace, with a stately 1920s quality that Escobar was in love with. The patio, overlooking the bay, had fans with blades as wide as palm fronds, spinning lazily abovethe cast and crew as they finished the last of their muffins,