Feast of Saints (15 page)

“But I don’t have roosters. None of the eggs these hens lay are fertilized. They’re never going to hatch,” said Cully.

“Doesn’t matter to Dolly,” she said.

“Broody?” asked Jake.

“It’s the instinct to sit on the eggs and incubate them until they hatch, which, if they were fertilized, would be twenty-one days after she started setting them,” she explained.

“It’s a good idea to break her of it, Cully. If she’s determined, she may sit on the eggs until she starves herself to death. Broody hens only take short breaks to eat and drink. It’s hard on them if they go too long.”

“I’ve tried moving her off the nest, but she just flaps and pecks and hops right back in there. If I close it off, the other hens won’t have a place to lay their eggs. Is there something else I can do?”

“Well, you can try a couple of things. You can move her to a crate with a metal floor for a week or two, but you may have to do that for a few weeks off and on until she stops heading for the nest box as soon as you put her back in the coop. Or, we can try dunking her.”

Jake laughed out loud. “Dunking a chicken? You mean in barbeque sauce?”

Lilly frowned at Jake. Cully was obviously fond of Dolly. Ignoring his lame joke, she asked Cully, “Do you have a large pail? And ice?”

“I’ll be right back,” said Cully, hurrying into the house. He came back a moment later with a large metal bucket, the kind used for a cookout to fill full of beer, and a bag of ice.

“Perfect,” she said. “Dump the ice in and let’s fill it with the hose.”

While they waited for the large pail to fill, she said, “I’m not exactly sure of the biological mechanism involved – my brother could tell you – but when a hen goes broody, her body temperature elevates and her entire underside is warm to the touch. It’s warm and humid under there and perfect for incubation. Sometimes, the hen will pluck feathers from her legs and chest to allow the eggs to get closer to her warm body.”

“That’s exactly what she did. I thought she was a goner.”

Lilly smiled at Cully, who was so clearly relieved that what was going on with Dolly was completely normal.

Assessing the level in the bucket, she said, “Okay, I think that’s good. The idea is to lower her body temperature to break the cycle. She’s not going to like it. You’d better do the honors, Cully. She’s likely to peck me to death. Don’t completely submerge her, just her bottom half.”

Jake, who was still chuckling at the entire scenario, stepped forward to get a closer look at the dunking process. Lilly smirked. She’d done this before. She stealthily stepped back until the coop was partially blocking her from the icy bucket.

Cully opened the nest box, quietly cooing to Dolly. She let out a loud squawk when Cully picked her up and she kept squawking in a god-awful racket all the way to the ice bucket. Jake was laughing hard and kept laughing, until Dolly’s feet and breast hit the water. Water sprayed in all directions as Dolly flapped and flogged violently.

It was Lilly’s turn to bend over laughing as Jake let out his own squawk and bounded away from the flailing chicken that Cully was valiantly holding in the water.

Raising her palm and laughing so hard she could barely speak, she gasped, “Okay, okay. I think that’s enough, Cully. You don’t want to give her hypothermia.”

Cully lifted Dolly out of the bucket and let her down. The offended hen shook out her ruffled wet feathers and started preening herself.

“I think it worked! She’s not rushing back to the nest like she’s done every other time I’ve pulled her off.”

Cully reached into the now vacant nest box and pulled out some freshly laid eggs. “Anyone for an omelet?”

“Me!” responded Jake whole-heartedly, wringing water out of his Hardy Amies shirt.

It was after ten when Jake dropped Lilly at her bungalow, insisting on walking her to her door. Over the best omelet he’d ever tasted, Cully had agreed to come on board for
Feast
, and not just as a consultant. Turns out he was bored with retirement and had started to question his own sanity, poking fun at his chicken hobby. He asked shrewd questions about the crew, the equipment and the schedule. By the time they left, Jake was convinced Lilly had been right. They needed a Cully Sampson.

As he pulled away from Lilly’s house, he pressed the button on his phone to activate voice command.

“Call John De Luca.” John was retired LAPD. He’d done work for Jake for seven years. Mostly background checks. He’d done the background check on Lilly, as a matter of fact. Jake had met John when he was still on the force. He’d been the detective called in when Tyler had gone missing for an afternoon when he was four. John had quickly determined it was the nanny’s new boyfriend, so strung out on heroin he’d forgotten to leave a ransom note. Tyler had been recovered before he even knew anything was amiss.

Ever since that harrowing afternoon, Jake had become even more vigilant about protecting his family. Now, Lilly was family.

John picked up on the second ring. “Good evening, Mr. Durant. All’s well, I hope?” John was a throwback to an earlier time. Jake had given up telling John to call him by his first name.

“John, I need you to check out someone for me. First name’s Campbell. He works security at Warner Brothers.”

“You got anymore to give me on him, Mr. Durant?”

“Just a description, but if you need me to, I can get you access to his file tomorrow.”

“Don’t trouble yourself. I know some of the guys that work lot security at Warner. Retireds like me. I won’t bother you unless I have to. How quickly do you need this?”

“As quick as you can, John.”

“I’ve got a guy on the night shift over there. I can have his social and a background check done in an hour or two.” Jake was well aware that John bent the rules to get results. He’d have a full NCIC check run on Campbell whatshisfucker before morning. The NCIC, an acronym for the National Crime Information Center, was a restricted computer database of criminal justice information available only to law enforcement, but the fact that he was retired and was no longer privileged to access the database never stopped John.

“Call me at three. I’ll be up. And John, thanks,” he said, signing off.

Parking the McLaren in front of his house, Jake paused before getting out of the car. Palming his phone he counted to ten. Then twenty. Shit, he was driving himself crazy trying to resist checking up on her. For the five thousandth time since he’d given her a “company issue” smartphone, Jake tapped the icon on his own phone that brought up a patented global positioning satellite program, aptly named, FindNow. The patent was owned by one of Jake’s businesses and licensed to just one user.

The FindNow start screen on Jake’s phone gave a selection of cities in which his list of designated people could currently be found. As long as they were carrying their own company issue phones, they could be pin-pointed to within an accuracy of three feet. Colored dots indicated the location of the people he most cared about. Jennis and Sierra, a yellow and blue dot, were in New York. Tyler, his little sister, Emma, and their parents, green, pink, purple and orange dots, were here in LA. As were Phillip and Wil, light blue and white dots.

Jake tapped a crimson dot and a map of LA appeared, then zeroed in on West Hollywood. There she was, right where he’d left her, snug at home in her bungalow.

Chapter 12

Jackson Hole, Wyoming, perched at the foot of a dramatic range of the Rocky Mountains called the Tetons, was a wealthy cowboy tourist town and a breathtakingly beautiful place. The central mountains of the Tetons were known as the Cathedral Group because of the way they were clustered and shot straight to heaven. Grand Teton at the center of the group stood over thirteen thousand feet.

On location in Wyoming, Allegrezza, dragging Sofia with him, has retreated to the mountains after a brutal fight to recover from some nasty wounds inflicted by Alan Hume’s supernatural character, Blaylock. The mountain scenes were being shot out of sequence. They had already filmed the close-ups of Sofia tending to the wounds the previous week at the studio, where a fallen down, snowy mountain cabin had been built on the soundstage. The actual bloody battle wouldn’t be filmed until a few weeks after they returned from Wyoming. While they were filming in the mountains, back in LA a crew was starting construction on a two story green room next to the snowy cabin in Studio G for filming the major action fight sequences. Wires, harnesses, safety mats, nets and cranes would be readied for the acrobatics required for the fights.

During post-production, the action segments would be heavily accentuated with computer generated imagery, CGI. The green screen allowed for chroma key compositing, which involved digitally replacing the green background, pixel by pixel, with other images using computer software.

By the time the film crew and cast left for Wyoming, nearly two months into filming, things were running much more smoothly than they had the first week. Cully, in his understated way, had whipped the camera crew into shape. Monty, Jake, even Alison, had relaxed.

Lilly wished she could say the same about herself. She felt constantly in danger of falling behind. As her stress escalated, her nightmares increased in intensity, impinging upon her already limited sleep time. She couldn’t tell if it was the lack of sleep or the nightmares themselves, but her nerves wouldn’t stop clamoring when she was working closely with Jake in the mornings. Rattling around inside of her, too, was a growing fascination with the man.

He was a bit of a mystery. Mary had completely taken over removing his makeup at the end of the day, leaving Lilly free to concentrate on the next day’s effects. The only one-on-one time she had with Jake was early in the mornings. At four-thirty when Jake hit the makeup chair, he would bring an etablet, moving it from hand to hand to keep it out of her way while she worked. He would read legal-looking documents and respond to hundreds of emails. He followed her directions on what to do, where to move, when to stand, and he seemed to appreciate the extra time she took to make sure he was comfortable, but they rarely spoke. He’d often not look up from his work until she was completely finished. When he did, he’d blink at his reflection in the mirror, seemingly astonished at the transition that had taken place.

After weeks of working with him every day, she felt like she knew him even less than before. She got to know the businessman more than anything, just by watching him. In addition to the work he did on the etablet in the chair, at every break in filming throughout the day, Mary would accost him with a list of people who needed to be called or who were waiting outside the studio gates for permission to come in and meet with him, even if only for a few minutes.

The confidence he exuded on film, necessary to pull off the characters he played, wasn’t feigned. He was supremely capable and successful. Even Lilly, who didn’t spend much time reading the business and sports news, recognized many of the famous names of the callers seeking his advice or investment dollars. It was frankly intimidating. Occasionally, Jake would ask her opinion on a project, particularly if it touched on anything to do with film or television. The fact that he would solicit her opinion and listen intently to her ideas never failed to surprise her.

As much of a mystery as she found his thought processes, on the flip side, she came to know his body intimately. Even trimmed down for the role, he was still a big and powerful man. Kneading the muscles in his back and prepping him for the applications that would make him a gory, hot mess, she could feel the strength in him. It was becoming harder each day to ignore the physical draw she felt to Jake.

Some mornings were worse than others. Although she refused to acknowledge them, not every night were her dreams of Jake nightmares. There were mornings when she would wake with an aching, unfulfilled desire fired by a shadowy figure, almost larger than life. Just about Jake’s size. Okay, exactly Jake’s size.

The only direct flight to Jackson Hole got Lilly in after nine p.m. Nervous about being so far from the Lab, she arrived a full day early so that she could spend some time setting up. Hotels tended to depress her, so she avoided them whenever possible. Instead, she was staying on her friend Mike Harris’ couch. Mike had been her brother’s roommate in college. Lionel, Lilly and Mike had spent many hours over pizza and beer in Lawrence, Kansas. He was like another brother. It was Mike who introduced Lionel to Julie, her sister-in-law.

Lilly pulled her rented Chevy Aveo into the little gravel spot behind the apartment. Mike worked as a bartender at the Snake River Grill and had left a key for her under the mat. Between his night schedule and her early mornings and long days, they’d be like two ships passing in the night. However, the casting call had them finished in Wyoming by Friday and Monday was slotted as a budget and planning day. So she and Mike had made plans to go hiking over the weekend, a two night backpacking trip into the Tetons. She was looking forward to the break.

The following morning, Lilly headed out to the location, arriving about the same time as the busses and trailers with the location crew. She scouted the trailers for the best place to set up a mobile Lab. She found it in the climate controlled camera trailer. Before unpacking her supplies, she had to rub her icy hands together. Warming up in the trailer, she set about making the extra applications for the next day’s shoot.

When she arrived back on location the next morning at three-thirty a.m., everything seemed in order. She had just finished putting the final touches on the bloodier applications and was moving her trays over to the makeup trailer when Jake arrived.

“Wooh,” he woofed, rubbing his hands together, “it’s freezing out there.”

“Tell me about it.” She smiled in welcome. “I hope these scenes are short, or you’re going to end up frost-bitten.”

Without ceremony, Jake stripped off his shirt and sat in the makeup chair. The blue of his veins stood out on his goose-fleshed skin. Lilly warmed her hands and the lotion first before starting on his shoulders, back and arms, rubbing in circles as much to warm and smooth his skin as to apply the lotion. She found herself slowing and focusing on knotted muscles under his shoulder blades, on the column of his neck, beside the ridge of his spine. Jake closed his eyes and let his head drop while she worked, making occasional hmmm sounds so quietly she wasn’t sure she heard him.

Finished, she patted him gently on the shoulder to signal it was time to apply the glue, applications and paint necessary for the day’s shoot. He’d been through it so many times, he knew what was coming. Groaning, he lifted his head and grimaced at her, “Already?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling at him. “Time to make a monster of you.”

Allegrezza’s wounds were some fine work by Lilly. Their flawlessness had already been proven in the dailies on the set in LA. Jagged claw marks on Jake’s back and forearms oozed blood and gaped open to expose working muscle and bone. Although she had kept the use of applications minimal when she had revamped Jake’s face after the Culver City meeting, this work required extensive use of applications. Particularly difficult was a stab wound to his right eye that was created by a multi-layered application adhered with extreme care not to irritate the sensitive area.

Thirty minutes later, Lilly was finished, but not happy. It had been much too hard to set the glue and adhere the applications, which were stiff and lacked elasticity. Jake studied her frowning expression, “What’s wrong, Pix?”

“I’m not sure, but I think it’s the cold, and maybe the dryer mountain air. The apps look right, but they don’t feel right.”

She started to get a sick feeling in her stomach. This day might not go well. If the applications weren’t pliable, they would tug and pull on Jake’s skin, ruining the natural look that was achieved in the balmy LA studio. She was frustrated and embarrassed; she was a chemical engineer after all. Why hadn’t she planned for the cold? She should have realized that the formulation of the plastics might need to be tweaked to perform.

Her fears only worsened as the shoot began. The apps, which had been mildly stiff in the climate-controlled trailer, became stubbornly inflexible in the bitter cold outside. By noon, Jake’s mouth was set in a thin line. She’d had to adjust the eye stab wound many times as the adhesive on the more intricate pieces froze, then failed. As she gently removed the application for the third time and looked at Jake’s tired and bloodshot eye underneath, she said for what felt like was the hundredth time, “I’m really sorry. I can’t believe I didn’t plan for this. There’s a fix, but I’m going to have to have some materials overnighted. I’ll go talk to Monty and explain.”

“No – don’t. I’ll do it. Go work on your fix. I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that, Jake was gone, and she’d been dismissed.

A voice inside her head was screaming. Berating her. It was a simple change in the composition of the silicon, but she didn’t have everything she needed, and she didn’t imagine she could get it in any of the little towns around here. How the hell was she going to have it ready by the next day? Losing the afternoon was bad enough. Tens of thousands of dollars of lost time.

If she let herself dwell on it any longer, she was going to be frozen with fear and unable to do anything. First things first. Order supplies. She needed medical grade adhesive with a higher silicone content and powdered latex to add to her application compound. Unfortunately, in her paranoia at leaving the Lab behind, she’d premixed her powdered materials before leaving LA. She had two five-gallon drums of raw material, none of which was going to work in this frigid weather.
Crap, crap, crap
.

Think, Lilly!
A heavenly vision of shelves upon shelves stocked full of just the silicones, latexes and adhesives that she needed flitted through her mind. She knew that place. It was real but it was back in Kansas, at the warehouses of Dow Chemical, where she’d worked through college. After this fiasco she might find herself right back there.

Sucking in a breath, she jumped up and snapped open her laptop to Google Dow Chemical. They had operations all over the country… including…
yes!
Riverton, Wyoming, a mere four hours away. Lilly looked at her watch; it was one o’clock in the afternoon. If she left right away, she could be back well before midnight. She’d still have to mix, color test, recast and cure the applications. The cure time alone was forty minutes, which was a hunk of time, but at least they could cure simultaneously. She’d have to work fast, but she thought she could be ready before Jake sat in the makeup chair.

Grabbing her phone and purse, she went in search of her car. She still had to figure out how to get in the plant, which was going to take more than a few calls, but she could make those from the car. She’d also call and place her FedEx order as a backup. Two hours out of Jackson Hole on the road to Riverton, Jill Mackey, the night supervisor for Dow’s Riverton plant returned her call, having spoken with the Kansas plant supervisor to confirm that Lilly was someone worthy of a favor. Lilly gratefully listed everything she needed while Jill jotted it down.

A few minutes before five a.m., bleary but elated, Lilly pulled and stretched the completed applications. The adjustments worked. The new materials remained flexible in the cold and the glue held its stick. If it hadn’t been for the previous day’s disaster, she’d appreciate her expensive chemical engineering education.

When she stepped outside for a bracing breath of fresh air, she saw Monty making his way over to Jake’s makeup trailer. Lilly met him halfway, intending to apologize for her screw up. She’d barely begun to voice her apology when Monty interrupted her.

“How’s he feeling today? Tell me he kicked whatever it is. The executive producer is going to call in thirty minutes, and I don’t want to report we’re out another day. The shit I took for yesterday afternoon was bad enough.” Shaking his head, Monty said, “Weird, I’ve worked with him on three films, and he’s never delayed a shoot, and I know damn well there were times he was puking his guts out between scenes.”

Wrinkling her nose at the image, she tried her apology again, “Sir, I’m really…” only to be interrupted by Monty again.

“Good to go?” he said, looking relieved to see Jake, who had walked up behind her.

“Yes,” said Jake perfunctorily, then grabbed her by the elbow. “Come on, Pixie, I’ve been looking for you. Get it in gear.” He walked away toward the makeup trailer, leaving Lilly no choice but to jog along beside him on her much shorter legs.

Once locked inside the trailer, Jake turned to her, one brow raised, “Problem solved? It’s going to be thirty degrees today, not so cold as yesterday, but still below freezing.”

“Are you really sick?” she asked.

“Do I look sick?”

“But Monty said….” she trailed off. “Oh, Jake, you shouldn’t have done that.”

Jake looked hard at her and didn’t pull any punches. “Between the two of us, who do you think Monty is more likely to forgive for yesterday?”

“That would be you,” she said miserably. A mistake like that not only would have earned her Monty’s wrath, she could have been ruined in the industry. Jake, however, could bear it with barely a scratch to his reputation.

“I don’t know what to say, how to thank you,” she said.

“Telling me you’ve got it worked out would be a good start.”

“Yes!” she said quickly, some of her earlier elation returning. “But I had lots of help.” Inspired, she asked, “Can I bother you for a tiny favor?”