A Wrench in the Works Page 16

  “Over on the side of the house. Thanks, Diego.”

  “Now that would be a distraction,” I said when he walked away.

  “I suppose.” She shrugged. “I guess I’ve known him too long to be distracted anymore.”

  “Maybe you should have your blood pressure checked. Or your eyesight.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, maybe. Oh.” All of a sudden she wobbled and her eyes rolled back. “Oh.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I feel . . . I can’t . . . uhh.” Her head lolled. Then her legs gave out and she collapsed on the ground.

  “Chloe!” I screamed. I patted her cheeks. They felt clammy and her lips were turning a weird shade of blue. “Wake up!” I looked up and caught Mindy Payton’s glance. “Call 911! Chloe’s passed out.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Tommy worked to revive my sister until the EMTs got there. They rushed her to the hospital, where the emergency room doctor determined that she had been poisoned by some as yet undetermined substance. They pumped her stomach and released her two hours later.

  We were home by six that night. I brought Chloe’s pajamas downstairs so she wouldn’t have to make the climb up to her room. She was tucked under a blanket in the living room, sipping warm tea and nibbling on soda crackers, when Eric showed up at the house to ask her some questions.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I just had my stomach pumped.”

  “Probably a good thing since the doctor suspects you might’ve overdosed on Dilaudid.”

  She made a face. “What is that?”

  “It’s a narcotic,” he said slowly, then added, “They call it heroin in a pill.”

  “Heroin?” She stared at me, her eyes wide. “Oh my God.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, worrying plenty for both of us. “They pumped it out of you.” I looked at Eric. “How did it happen? All she ate was a cheeseburger and fries at the diner. And Mac and I had the exact same thing.”

  He nodded, then turned to my sister. “What else did you eat after that, Chloe?”

  “Nothing,” Chloe said. “After you dropped me off at the house, I went to hair and makeup and then we were about to film when I passed out.”

  “What happened in hair and makeup?”

  “You know, I talked to the girls. Josie curled my hair a little. She redid my makeup. That’s pretty much it.” She frowned. “Wait. I had some coffee.”

  Eric glanced up from his notepad. “Who all was in the trailer with you?”

  “Josie, of course. Marisa. She does wardrobe. Um, no one else—oh. Chelsea was in there for a few minutes. She and Josie are pals.” Chloe’s eyes widened. “She brought us all coffee.”

  “And you drank it?”

  “Barely half a cup. I thought it would help keep me awake after I filled up on that cheeseburger.”

  “Did you throw the cup away?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut to remember. “Yes. I put it down at the bottom of the trash can, standing up. I didn’t want it to spill all over the trash. Everything gets so soggy and smelly.”

  I looked at Eric. “Can you find the cup?”

  He stood, shut his notepad, and slipped it into his pocket. “I’ll give it my best shot.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Chloe was feeling so much better the next morning, she refused to skip out on the day’s filming. I had to admit she looked fine, probably because she’d slept for over twelve hours. I, on the other hand, tossed and turned all night worrying about my sister.

  I fixed a quick breakfast of cereal, toast, and coffee, and made it to the film set a few minutes early. Unlike the day before, with so many delays and so much trauma, today people were busy and it felt like everyone was more than ready to get back to work.

  We both had our makeup checked by Josie, who was relieved to see Chloe looking good.

  “Are you all right?” She studied Chloe’s face. “I was scared to death when I saw you faint out there.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She nodded, frowning. “Well, you look fine, too. Might need a little more blush than usual, but otherwise, you’re that same gorgeous girl we know and love.”

  “Aw, thanks, Josie.” Chloe gave her a hug and then sat down in the chair.

  “I’m using a new makeup on your face today,” Josie said.

  Chloe frowned. “How come?”

  “You know I have my own stash that I use just for you, right?”

  “Yeah, I love that stuff.”

  “Something happened to the liquid foundation. It turned yellow. So I’m using a new bottle that’s a slightly lighter shade. I don’t think you’ll notice any difference, but let’s try it.”

  A cold chill trickled down my neck. “How did it turn yellow?”

  “It must be some kind of chemical reaction,” Josie said, shrugging. “Or maybe it was expired. I didn’t have time to figure it out so I just decided to toss it and use this new shade.”

  “Do you still have the bottle?”

  She looked a little put out with me, but I persisted. “I’m just curious.”

  “I tossed it in the trash can under the dressing table. Hold on.” She fished around and pulled out a small bottle of makeup. “Here you go. Have a blast.”

  I gave her a brief smile. “Thanks.”

  I wrapped it in tissue and stuck the bottle in my purse, then watched Josie go to work on Chloe. The three of us chatted about nothing in particular while I waited for my turn in the chair. I wasn’t about to leave Chloe alone with anyone on the set until we found out exactly what had happened to her. All we knew was that someone had dumped a bunch of pills in her coffee. And right now, the most obvious suspect was Chelsea. I just wasn’t sure why she’d want to hurt Chloe.

  Eric had already questioned the young assistant this morning, but since she was still walking around the set—with eyes red from crying—I figured Eric hadn’t found enough reason to arrest her yet.

  An hour later, we were finally ready to film our first segment. Despite the early hour, an enthusiastic crowd had gathered on the sidewalk.

  “Yoo hoo! Shannon!” a woman cried, waving from the audience. She came toddling up the walkway and Suzanne hurried over to stop her.

  “Oh, it’s Margaret Bloom,” I said to Chloe. “I’ll just go say hi.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “It’s okay, Suzanne,” I said with a smile. “This is the owner of the house. We should be nice to her.”

  “Oops, my bad,” Suzanne said. “Sorry. We’re extra security conscious around here today.”

  “I appreciate that,” Margaret said.

  Suzanne walked away and I hurried closer to greet Margaret with a big hug. I introduced her to Chloe and then asked, “How are you, Margaret?”

  “I’m fabulous. What a crowd we’ve got. It’s all so exciting.”

  “Yes. Very exciting.”

  “I heard about the murder,” she whispered. “At first I thought it was a joke, but I guess not.”

  “No, not a joke. It was pretty awful.”

  “Ready to roll!” the stage manager shouted.

  “That’s our cue to go to work,” I said. “But I hope you’ll stick around and watch for a little while.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Bye.”

  Chloe and I dashed back to the steps and once there, I paced around and took a few deep breaths. I shook my arms and did several shoulder rolls to work the tension out of my system. “Can we go over what we’re going to say in this first segment?”

  “Yeah, let’s do a quickie rehearsal.” She pointed toward the porch. “I’ll be standing near the far left corner and I’ll talk first. So I’ll say something like . . . ‘The paint is chipped off, the wood is rotted, blah blah blah,
there’s only one cure for this. Shannon?’ And then you walk in.”

  “Right. I walk over and pull the corner beam off the house.”

  “Yes, and you’ll explain what you’ve found and what you’re doing. Just the way we talked about it yesterday morning before all hell broke loose.”

  “If only the cameras had been rolling then.”

  “I know.” She patted my shoulder. “No worries. We’ll do it even better this time. It’ll be awesome.”

  “Okay, good.” I took another deep breath in and out and shook my arms again to loosen up. “Ready whenever you are.”

  We walked up the steps and Chloe took her place on the side of the porch. Gary the sound guy attached a mini-microphone to my shirt and I clipped the transmitter onto the back of my jeans. He did the same for Chloe and then cameraman Bob moved in for the shot. A few seconds later, Suzanne signaled to the stage manager, who shouted, “Action,” and Chloe went to work.

  I eyed Suzanne speculatively. The woman had stepped into the role of producer without missing a beat, almost as though she wasn’t surprised by the change of circumstances. Was it all part of her plan to take over the show?

  And boy, did that thought come out of left field. I shook my head and forced myself to pay attention to what we were doing.

  Chloe ran her gloved hand across a length of siding. “You’ll notice that the clapboard siding is relatively unscathed here,” she said, turning to the camera. “This area might only require a new coat of paint.”

  She kept her hand on the siding as she walked toward the railing at the far end. “But as we move to the end of the porch, you can see a lot more damage.” She touched a vertical beam about six inches from the outer edge of the porch. “Check out this beam holding up the porch roof. It’s actually warped. Can you see how it bends?” She turned. “And the siding here is completely rotted.” She looked into the camera. “Everything on this end of the house has been much more exposed to rain and wind and sun damage for years. I’m concerned that we might have to remove the entire outer shell of this wall and replace it.”

  She patted the wide piece of molding at the corner edge of the house. “See this corner beam? Watch what happens when Shannon tries to scrape away the paint.”

  I stepped into the shot and held up my crowbar. “To check how much damage has been done to this molding, I’m going to use the flat end of my crowbar to scrape the wood.” I began to scrape along the surface and watched it crumble and fall apart.

  Chloe shook her head. “It’s disintegrating before our eyes.”

  “This entire corner molding will have to be replaced along with the siding.” I turned the crowbar around. “There’s a loose nail in here that I want to remove.” I used the claw end to remove the nail, but instead of just the nail, the entire piece of molding, from the roof to the porch floor, was ripped off the corner of the house. Which was exactly how we’d planned it. I had to admit that it made a heck of a show.

  “Whoa.” Chloe smiled at the camera. “That’s going to leave a mark.”

  I laughed. “No kidding.”

  “Shannon,” she said. “If this were your house, where would you start making repairs?”

  I clutched the crowbar. “With a job like this, it’s almost like working triage. In an emergency room, the first rule, always, is stop the bleeding.”

  “Good rule to follow.”

  “Right,” I said, nodding. “So in the case of an old house like this where some things are dangerously close to falling down around you, the first thing you need to do is check and reinforce the main beams. I usually start in the basement because if the wood beams are damaged down there, the whole house could literally collapse. In the case of this porch, that roof up there”—I pointed upward—“is not going to make it through another winter.”

  The camera then followed Chloe as she walked back to the center of the porch. “Shannon’s right. Look at this.” She pointed to the peaked roof above the porch steps. “This header beam has sustained so much water damage, it’s turned to sponge.”

  I walked over with a stepladder, set it down, and climbed up. “Not only that, but look. The pitch of the roof itself has been warped. So when it does rain, the water soaks right into the wood instead of draining into the gutters.” Taking my crowbar again, I barely scraped the surface of the header beam and watched as flakes and chunks of wood fell to the ground.

  Chloe covered her head. “Hardhats are essential with work like this.”

  I climbed down from the stepladder and walked a few feet out of camera range to grab the two hardhats waiting there. Stepping back into the shot, I handed Chloe one of the hardhats. “Here you go.”

  We both grinned as we put them on and then I said, “So yes, the corner beams and clapboard siding are clearly a mess. They look bad and they have to be replaced. But this porch roof is actually hazardous to our health. It could come down at any moment and hurt someone. So to answer your question, Chloe, fixing this roof must be our first priority.”

  Chloe grinned into the camera. “And that’s exactly what we’ll tackle first, right after this message.”

  There was a short pause and then the stage manager said, “And . . . we’re clear. Great job, guys. Ten-minute break while we set up the next shot.”

  The stage manager took our hardhats and Chloe slipped her arm through mine as we walked down the steps. “What do you think?”

  “That was amazing,” I said, still tingling from my experience on camera. “I don’t think I embarrassed myself too much, did I?”

  “You were great, Shannon,” Wade called from the driveway. Sean gave me a thumbs-up.

  I flashed them a grateful smile. “Thanks, guys.”

  “They’re right,” Chloe said, giving me a quick hug. “You were fantastic.”

  Blake strolled over from the catering table. “Good job, ladies.”

  “Thanks, Blake,” Chloe said. “You and Diego are up next.”

  “We’re ready,” he said, and winked before walking away.

  Chloe glanced my way. “You want to rehearse our next lead-in?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  We strolled along the walkway running lines together.

  “So let me ask you,” I said. “Once we’ve finished all these lead-ins and explanations, do we get to work on actual demolition and construction?”

  She frowned a little. “Well, we’ll mostly be starting the projects and then the crew will actually move in to handle the heavy lifting. It’s basically to save time. But don’t worry, we’ll get plenty of chances to destroy things.”

  I clapped my hands. “Goody.”

  “That’s my favorite part, too. But it just saves a lot of time if the crew takes over after we’ve done the initial explanations and demonstration.”

  “So they get to do the fun stuff.” I heard the disappointment in my own voice and who could blame me?

  “Pretty much. Like what we just did. We tore off a little siding and ripped off the molding, did some scraping and poking to show all the damage. Later the cameras will film the crew doing the actual demo. They’ll completely remove the outer layer of the front of the house. And that’s pretty much how it goes, inside and out, all the way through the next few shows.”

  “I guess it makes sense to do it that way for television. I mean, if I were doing all the work with my crew, it would take us months to finish this house.”

  “Exactly,” Chloe said. “But we’ve got a crew of fifty guys standing by and that includes some really experienced carpenters and electricians and painters. They can do the work in less than a month, as long as we get the lumber, tile, supplies, and equipment to show up on a timely basis.”

  “More showbiz magic.”

  She grinned. “Yup.”

  “Chloe? Is that you?”

  We both turned and watched in horror as
Richie Rich strolled across the grass like he owned the place. He wore black slacks with shiny black patent leather shoes. He had his white polo shirt tucked in and the collar popped up. He just looked so slick, and not in a good-looking way. More like a refugee from the Jersey Shore. Not the actual place, but the tacky TV show.

  “Hey, babe,” he said. “I can’t believe it. What’re you doing here?”

  Babe? And what a dumb question. Were we supposed to believe that he didn’t know that Chloe Hammer, star of Makeover Madness, would be in town filming for two weeks?

  Without a second thought, I stepped directly in front of Chloe. “I’ve got a better question, Richie. What are you doing here?”

  Chloe maneuvered around me, whispering, “It’s okay, Shannon.”

  “No, it’s not,” I hissed back at her.

  “Hey, it’s Shannon, right?” Richie’s slow, smarmy voice was scraping my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. “You’re looking good, girl. Long time no see.”

  “Not long enough,” I said, low enough that only Chloe caught it. Hearing her giggle made me smile. But I had to wonder why guys like Richie were so clueless.

  “Soooo, Chloe,” he said, slicking back his hair. “I heard you were working here and figured I’d stop by and say hey. If you’re not busy later, let’s you and me go for a drink.”

  “Not even tempting,” she said. “Go away, Richie.”

  “Aw, come on. We can drink to old friendships.”

  “Friendship?” She made a short gagging sound. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? We had a good time back in the day.”

  I jumped in. “So you’re not only icky, but delusional.”

  Chloe nudged me aside. “There were no good times with you and me, Richie. You took advantage of me and then threatened to destroy my family’s reputation.”

  He frowned. “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the films we found in the Connolly house.” She lowered her voice a bit, but Richie didn’t miss a word. “Don’t pretend you don’t remember. You stole them and sold them for a lot of money. Then you threatened to blame it on my father if I ever told the police.”