Page 5 of Casualties of War
“Unlikely events happen all the time,” Stuart replied.
“I pay you to be onmyside,” Adán shot back.
“You don’t pay me to brown-nose. You’ve got staff for that,” Stuartreturned.
Adán grinned. He couldn’t help it. They both knew how much he hated the glad-handing and hypocrisy of Lalaland. “Ifirestaff for that,” he replied, completing the little back-and-forth exchange. It was an old one. A familiar one.
Stuart scratched his thinning hair. “I’ll see if I can push them into letting you go. They haven’t arrested you.” He got to his feet.
The mention of beingarrested made Adán’s heart gave an extra hard beat. “Have you heard from her lately?” he asked, making his tone off-hand.
“Parris?” Stuart clarified. He gave a small shrug. “Probably somewhere classified. You know how it goes.”
“She always gives hints,” Adán pointed out.
Stuart raised a brow. “She doesn’t have to. There’s only one Spanish-speaking hotspot in the world at the moment. You figureit out.” He ducked under the tent opening and disappeared, leaving Adán alone in the stuffy tent, with a growing unease.
The only Spanish-speaking hotspot Adán knew of was Vistaria, only there were no American military of any capacity there. President Collins wouldn’t commit troops. So wherecouldshe be?
The only certainty was that Parris Graves was not in America. She had moved on from arrestingand processing party-goers, long ago.
Adán grinned at the memory. The destruction and resulting chaos of that first party, twenty years ago, had been almost as destructive as this one…
* * * * *
Until the police arrived and pulled the plug on the genuine antique Wurlitzer and arrested people, Adán didn’t know the poolside cabana had collapsed from too many people dancing on the roof, or thewindows on the first floor of the house were smashed.
He had been behind closed doors in an upstairs sitting room, his attention and every pore of his body focused on charming the producers sitting around him, while trying to look nonchalant.
It was hard to pull off, that note of casual indifference, because he hadn’t had a job in nearly a year and this was a big job. A huge, career-changingjob.
He didn’t need the producers to tell him that. He could feel it from reading the screen treatment. There wasn’t even a full script yet, although it didn’t matter. The team who was writing it weren’t big names, although Adán had seen the little Sundance winner they had written last year. Their names on the treatment shifted it from just another movie about a down-and-out cop, into a high-conceptthriller.
When the door shoved inward, dragging in air from the downstairs area that was thick with pot, everyone looked up, blinking.
“Party’s over,” the helmeted cop with the beer gut told them.
“What the hell, Officer?” Perry Sedona, producer and party host, protested. “We’re just talking here.”
“Time to check on your guests, sir,” the cop behind Beergut said. Her voice was light and youngalthough there was strength in it. “Are you aware that six of them started a party right out on Mulholland Drive?”
“So? It’s a free country,” Sedona replied.
“They’re naked, sir,” she shot back.
Sedona closed his mouth.
Adán leaned around Sedona to look at the cop.
Freckles. Arched brows. A sharp chin. Fine neck. Wisps of red hair escaped the helmet. On her, the helmet looked heavy enoughto break her neck if she tilted her head the wrong way. The gun on her hip looked as though it might outweigh her.
She was ridiculously young for a cop. She looked as if she was playing dress up—even more than some actresses did when they were in costume for a role too old for them. That happened far more than Adán liked, only who was he to bitch? He wasn’t even a working actor.
“Is that anactual Glock G21 .45 Auto?” Adán asked her. “Or are you just pleased to see me?”
Her mouth fell open.
Sedona snorted, snuffling his laughter.
