Hollywood Tiger: BBW Tiger Shifter Paranormal Romance (Hollywood Shifters Book 3) (11 page)

Chapter Eleven

Agent Sloane’s phone went straight to voicemail. Talking fast, Dennis gave a rundown on their situation, and ended with as close an approximation of their location as he could as he looked around.

To the right: a straight drop down a cliff. To the left, one of the private driveways. The gate was open.

Hank honked at them from behind, and turned on his left blinker. “What do we do?” Mindy asked in a small voice. “This is officially out of my wheelhouse—I’ve never been caught.”

“We still haven’t been caught,” Dennis said as he shut off his phone. “We’re just boxed, but we’ve got our phones, and our brains. We can do this.”

“Right,” she said, but still in that small voice.

“Go ahead, drive up as if this was an invitation. We’re Payton and Daniel, okay? Let’s improvise.” He shoved his phone into his pocket, hoping that out of sight, out of mind would work as long as possible.

They were on their own, but at least they still had their covers. He’d had to fast-talk out of dicey situations before. Keep cool, watch for chances, and they’d walk away from this one.
Both
of them.

His mind flashed back to the Hollywood location, and the satisfaction of letting his tiger rampage through the set. Where the heck had Mindy been? Hiding, of course. She had said herself that she was good at fading from notice—admittedly his rampage had been fast, but he hadn’t even been able to tease her scent from the chaos of other scents. He wondered briefly how many shots of his tiger were now all over YouTube, then a shadow at the edge of his vision caught his attention as a hawk drifted low over the drop into the valley, then winged overhead in a circle.

Damn. It had to have been following Hank from above, and noticed the Honda keeping pace—the shifter version of the traffic helicopter. It might even be the same damn shifter that had attacked Greg.

Why the hell hadn’t he thought of that? Too late now—and how could he explain? No, he wasn’t going to shock Mindy with a whole new set of problems when she was already facing enough tension. Better to sit tight and try to bull through.

All this streamed through his mind as Mindy turned up a narrow dirt road that switched back and forth a couple of times, each turn hidden by clumps of California black oak. Presently the road straightened out and widened to a circular driveway before a long, low one-story building that brought his friend JP’s mansion at home in Sanluce suddenly to mind.

Hank was right on their tail, but still Dennis saw Mindy sweeping the area for any escape route.

There wasn’t one. To one side, another sudden drop, affording a spectacular view of the mountains jutting above Malibu. Behind them the Valley stretched below. To the east, a high steel fence with points at the top. Nobody was vaulting over that—no one human, anyway. He wasn’t even sure his tiger could clear it, not that he was going anywhere without Mindy.

“Okay, Menace,” she said under her breath. “We’re Dan and Payton, but why did we follow that creep?”

“Because Haskell went ape-shit, and he’d promised we would meet the rest of the producers, now that Haskell has my check. Which I hope hasn’t bounced yet. So we followed Hank, thinking he’d lead us to the producers’ meeting.”

Mindy rolled to a stop against a big log. The Mercedes pulled in to the right, and one of the vans to the left. “So we’re pretending we didn’t get forced up here?”

“If we can give them any excuse not to escalate to threats, let’s lie like a couple of rugs, and the stupider they think we are the better,” he said.

“Got it.” Then he watched, admiration warming his core as she wriggled a little, her chin coming up. And she hit the door handle.

Dennis hit his own and swung his cane out. As soon as he got out of the car, he spotted Hank behind them, and said, “Is this where the other producers hang out? Why didn’t Haskell let me meet them before this?”

Hank looked taken aback at this, and turned his head, a man plainly looking for orders.

Dennis was used to being among the biggest guys in any gathering, topped only by his friend Mick Volkov. But the pale-haired man who stepped leisurely out from behind one of the vans was probably four to six inches taller than Mick, and at least as broad through the chest. Like Dennis and Hank, he was dressed entirely in black.
We look like a villains’ tea party
, Dennis thought grimly as he watched Torvaldsen’s pale blue eyes range over Dennis then shift to Mindy.

Dennis’s hackles prickled, his tiger stirring inside him. This guy was definitely Erik Torvaldsen, anaconda shifter and a criminal with a long list of accusations from different parts of the world. So far, no one had been able to pin him down. The intel on him had pointed to the possibility that he was taking orders from Haskell, but that had apparently been wrong.

But as far as we know, Jerome Haskell is the big boss.
“Who are you?” Dennis asked, looking around. “Has Jerry got here yet? I don’t know much about how to film a motion picture, but it seems to me he let things go to shit back there. Is it always like that?”

Torvaldsen said in accented English, “You are Daniel Moore?”

“That’s me,” Dennis said, putting a little extra gimp into his limp. “Newest producer on
Millennium Gate
, as of today, though I still haven’t seen a contract yet. But Jerry said gentleman’s agreement is the way people do things in Hollywood.”

“Come inside,” Torvaldsen said, as the van drivers flanked Dennis and Mindy.

She had pulled off her scarf and tucked it into her purse. She walked beside Dennis with a semblance of calm, but without her delightful hint of prance—reminding him of a German Shepherd pacing warily, tail down, ears flat. He noticed a big smudge of what looked like axel grease on the back of her skirt, and wondered if she’d been knocked down in the scramble. His head dropped—if she’d been hurt, if she got hurt, it would be totally on him.

Wary and tense, he followed Torvaldsen inside the house, which was incongruously decorated in warm shades of browns and gold and soft green in harmonious William Morris Arts and Crafts style. As they walked silently through a spacious living room, Dennis spotted paintings on the walls from that period, and wondered if they were originals.

Then the obvious hit him: this house did not belong to Torvaldsen, and Dennis wondered whom it did belong to. Probably one of the investors Haskell had scammed.

They walked through diamond-paned French doors onto a shaded terrace that curved around a huge, vaguely cloverleaf shaped pool built to resemble a lake, with a rock waterfall at one end, tucked against the hillside. It almost looked real.

Patio furnishings lined the terrace, curving around one end of the pool. Dennis tried to get near Mindy but Torvaldsen deliberately walked between them, forcing Dennis to one side, and Mindy to the other.

Torvaldsen  settled into a chair next to a low table, and indicated they should sit down as he said to Dennis, “Haskell is not coming. We are finished with him.”

“Well that’s damned unfortunate,” Dennis began loudly. “If I’m not a producer, he owes me my money back.” He remained standing, leaning on his cane, and doing his best to project self-righteous dominance.

Torvaldsen held up a hand, and turned to Mindy, who sat on the very edge of a chair, Hank standing directly behind her. “Who are you?” Torvaldsen said to her.

“Payton,” she said. “I’m with Danny. Jerry said I could have a part in his picture. I’m a belly dancer.”

Dennis watched Torvaldsen’s thin lips flatten minutely—he was already bored. Good.

“This is a pretty place you got here,” Mindy went on.

Torvaldsen looked past her to one of the silent men dressed alike in dark colors, and said, “Bring out something to drink. You want?” He turned to Mindy.

If this was a subtle test, she passed with flying colors. “Rum and Coke,” she replied.

God, I love her,
Dennis thought. His head rang like a bell as the truth of it hit him: he did love her. Though he still didn’t know what love meant, or how to measure its strength, he knew with utter conviction that Mindy stood at the very center of his life.

He didn’t want a life without her.

Mate.

“You?” The ice blue eyes turned Dennis’s way, and he snapped back into alertness. His tiger roused, awareness now in stealth mode. Their way was not the roaring charge, but the quiet ambush.

“Scotch,” Dennis said, though he’d far rather not have alcohol blurring his reactions. But so far their cover was holding, as well as their pretense that nothing was wrong. And right now that was about all they had for defense—and time.

“Find Scotch,” Torvaldsen said to the man, who walked into the house. Then he turned back to Dennis. “So you followed Hank.”

“We thought he was going back to the studio,” Dennis said in Daniel Moore’s bluff tones, projecting injury and affront. “Haskell told me all the producers were going to meet. I thought it was going to be at that film location, then we’d go out to dinner at Spago to celebrate.”

“This can still happen,” Torvaldsen said, then showed the edges of his teeth in not-quite-a-smile. “It is to be determined, if that is with or without you.”

Dennis scowled. “I gave Haskell a check for five million. Good faith. I haven’t even seen a damn contract yet!”

“Yes, let us discuss this five million,” Torvaldsen said. “If it is such good faith, why so long to tender it?”

“My man of business goes by-the-book. That’s why I hired him—”

“I have heard much of this man of yours, but no names. I will have his name. Write it down. I will talk to this by-the-book man myself.” He jerked his chin at another of the silent men surrounding them: they were now down to one guard and Hank, Dennis saw, as this one departed.

Damn. JP would be able to take out all three guards, plus Hank and Torvaldsen and not break a sweat. But JP wasn’t here.

Should he try with only these? But the moment that guard through the door, the first one came out carrying a heavy silver tray with a variety of glasses and bottles on it—including a can of Coke. He set this tray on the table near the lounge chair where Torvaldsen sat.

“I say again, sit.” The big man gave a curt nod at the chair adjacent, and Dennis sat down slowly, with one leg straight out as if his leg were still bad. He leaned his cane against his chair arm, and tried to look expectant, not wary.

The second guard reappeared immediately with a yellow pad of paper and a pen. This he brought to Dennis, who had not memorized the number that Agent Sloane had set up as a blind, in case of need. Amanda Peretti would answer it with the name of the fake accountant’s office. Dennis hated to take out his phone, but knew it was necessary—part of his persona—who memorized numbers anymore?

Dennis reluctantly took out his phone, and as he thumbed it open, he saw with sinking heart that there were no calls. He made a slow business of tabbing to his contacts, and reached the entry they’d set up.

As Dennis wrote, the guard stood there waiting. Dennis put the pen down on the pad and made to return his phone to his pocket, but then the guard reached and snatched it from his hand.

“Hey,” Dennis protested.

“We talk private,” Torvaldsen said, holding out his hand for the phone. “Perhaps you have it back.” He thumbed it on, and slowly punched in the number written on the pad.

Dennis held his breath. He was pretty sure the efficient Amanda would recognize his cell number. He hoped she wouldn’t think it was Dennis, but stick to the plan—and a few seconds later, Dennis’s ears picked up the tinny sound of a female voice: “Fortescue, Jackson, and Hill, Accounting. May I direct your call?”

“I will speak to Thomas Hill,” Torvaldsen said.

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Hill is in conference with a client. May I take a message?”

“He is to call back this number as soon as possible,” Torvaldsen said, and hung up on her.

And if she doesn’t call out the cavalry, then I’m an armadillo
, Dennis thought. The question was, with Agent Sloane missing and Greg wounded, and with the unknown secondaries still back in Hollywood, who constituted the cavalry? Once again Dennis wished he had an earbud, but would Daniel Moore have one? Too late to wonder about that.
Focus.

Torvaldsen then snapped his fingers at the silent guard and pointed at the drinks. The clink of ice cubes and the swish of poured alcohol added a surreal note—and heady aroma—to the chlorine and dust already permeating the atmosphere.

As the guard carried these drinks around, Dennis’s chest tightened, his tiger roused very near the surface. Dennis gazed across the corner of the pool at Mindy. She was not just heartbreakingly brave, but in spite of her smudged, heavy makeup and bright dress, she was beautiful. Not just her fascinating eyes and delectable mouth and magnificent curves. She was beautiful in ways he couldn’t even define because he’d never learned the vocabulary of romance. He’d denied its existence, and now he felt like a parched man in the desert who had turned his back on water.

She’s my mate
. The tiger surged protectively, and Dennis’s skin hurt and his muscles locked with his effort to maintain control. A thread of humor helped to steady him: only Dennis could manage to discover his mate while sitting in a dangerous situation a heartbeat away from the threat of death.