Page 83 of Romance Is Dead

“What a pathetic way to make a living.” Teddy leaned forward on the sofa, resting his arms on his knees as he clenched his fists. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d sure as hell make him sorry he ever said a bad word about you.”

Teddy had been even angrier than me when I cornered him on set to tell him about Trevor’s double identity. Come to think of it, it was the only time I could remember ever seeing him angry.

“I’d say.”

“It does make me more convinced Audrey did it, though,” Teddy mused.

“True.”

We’d spent the day analyzing every comment Audrey made and we even eavesdropped on another of her phone calls, but all we learned was that she was suffering from a persistent foot fungus and that her mother was on her fourth divorce.

“We know she’s not actually British, which suggests she’s hiding her identity,” I pondered. “Trevor loved spreading gossip, so if he figured out who she really is, that might be motive.”

“And Brent?”

“Now that, I’m not sure of.” My phone dinged with an email—the next day’s call sheet had arrived. “He was definitely harassing her on set less than an hour before he died. Maybe after getting away with killing Trevor, she’d gotten bolder?”

“Maybe.” Teddy sounded distracted.

“Are you ok?”

He frowned at his phone, leg jiggling. “I don’t know if I can do this. The scene tomorrow.”

“Really? Which one is it?” I grabbed a copy of the script from the desk. It was the scene in which Teddy and I try to fend off another attack from the witch. It’s a lot of action, and would require careful blocking, but nothing particularly difficult.

“I don’t understand. What’s the problem?”

Teddy snatched the pages away from me and stabbed at the offending line with his finger. “Look, right here. My character ‘grabs a loose leg off a chair and hits an incoming spell so it veers away and ricochets off the wall.’”

I tried to understand, truly I did, but something wasn’t clicking.

“Teddy, I’m still not getting it. It sounds like you have to hit the thing like a baseball. They’ll have you hit a ball and CGI the effect in later.”

“That’s the thing!” He took a deep breath. “I’m scared of playing baseball.”

I stared at him blankly. “What?”

“I know, it’s dumb.” He raked a hand through his hair, grabbing at it in agitation. “I had a bad experience in Little League when I was eight, and I haven’t been able to hold a baseball bat since. There’s no way I’ll be able to hit that ball.”

Wild theories ran through my head. Had he accidentally killed someone? Had someone nearly killed him? At. . . Little League?

“What kind of bad experience?”

“It was the third night of practice.” His eyes glazed over as he spoke. “I’d been striking out, literally, every night before that. When it was finally my turn, I hit the ball on my first try. I was so excited when it went flying through the air. But then it went sailing straight into the coach’s balls.”

“Oh no.”

“And all the kids started laughing, because nothing is funnier than someone getting hit in the balls when you’re eight, right? But the coach was in a lot of pain! And I felt so bad. And no matter how much my dad helped me practice, I couldn’t hit another ball the rest of the season.”

The corner of my mouth twitched. “Baseball or testicle ball?”

“Both.” Teddy’s face cracked into a brief smile before crumpling again. “It’s so lame. But now that it’s in my head, I can’t turn it off. I can’t focus on practicing my lines, because all I can think about is either not being able to hit the ball on cue or that I do hit it but then I hurt someone again.”

“Listen.” I nudged his thigh with my foot. “There’s a baseball diamond in town. If we head out now, maybe the lights will be on and we can practice.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. As long as you don’t hit me in the, er, balls.”

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