Shooting on Location (Lisa Chance Cozy Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  Lisa laughed. “You don’t like Christmas music? None of it?”

  “Does anybody like that stuff? It’s so goofy.”

  “I like it. I think my favorite is Walking in a Winter Wonderland. That song always makes me smile,” Lisa said.

  A customer held up his hand. “I’m fond of the old Bing Crosby Christmas songs, especially Silver Bells. Always kind of makes me wish I’d moved to the city.”

  “The city?” From Moss Creek, the city would be Phoenix. “I never saw Phoenix as the most Christmassy city,” Lisa said.

  “No,” he said, “but I could have gone to Flagstaff. Or even somewhere outside Arizona.”

  “Moss Creek always felt like a perfect little Christmas picture postcard,” Lisa said. “More coffee for you?”

  “Thanks.”

  The bell jingled as the front door swung open and Carly bustled into the café. Lisa blinked back the surprise she still felt at seeing her best friend’s hugely pregnant belly.

  “I need something with all of the sugar and all of the flavor but decaf or this kid will be doing back flips all night.”

  Annette looked questioningly at Lisa. “Want me to…?”

  “I got it.”

  Carly followed Lisa to the kitchen and watched her make a very large decaf mocha with extra foam, extra whipped cream and a drizzle of caramel on top. She held her hands out in a gimme position, eagerly taking a slurp as soon as Lisa handed it over.

  “Thank you. I am so glad you opened this place.”

  Lisa laughed. “Me too, but maybe not for the same exact reason.”

  “You mean you didn’t do all this just to serve me the treats I crave in my hour of need? So selfish.”

  “We all have our shortcomings. How’s the baby?”

  “Kicking up a storm.” Carly rubbed her belly. “This little guy or girl is going to be some kind of athlete for sure.”

  “You’re still waiting to find out the sex?”

  “Yep. We painted the nursery pale green. It’s supposed to be a soothing color, which seems like a good thing for a baby. Or a mommy. I can’t believe how much there is to do to get ready.”

  “I thought you had the house pretty much set up. What else could that little critter need?”

  “The house, mostly yes. But I’m going to be out on maternity leave for the entire end of the semester. I have to get things ready for the long-term sub like yesterday.”

  Lisa nodded. Her dad, the high school band teacher, had always fretted on his rare sick days. Of course, there were some big differences between a third grade classroom and the high school band room. Lou had mostly worried about instruments being broken, stolen, or vandalized. He never thought it was the actual band kids that would do such a thing, but the other kids. Anyone who didn’t play an instrument was automatically a tiny bit suspect in Lou Chance’s eyes.

  “Not to mention,” Carly went on, “I just realized that my life as a non-parent is nearly over. Like, poof. We need to do things before everything changes!”

  “Ok, sure. What do you want to do?”

  “Tonight is the full moon. I want to sit on your balcony with you and watch the full moon rise, and then, once we’re done freezing our butts off, we go in and get warm with hot cocoa and watch The Crow.”

  “The Crow?”

  “Yeah! You know, Brandon Lee comes back from the dead for revenge. It’s the movie that made him a star, and the one that killed him.”

  “Oh, right, yeah. Ok, but what brought this on?”

  Carly sighed. “Don’t you remember the interview they filmed with him while he was making the movie? It was so tragic. He told the interviewer how you never know how much time you have left, how you should make sure to take the time to do things while you can. How many more times in your life will you get to see the full moon rise?” Carly sighed again and shook her head. “It was so tragic. And he was only twenty-seven. It’s the twenty-seven curse. Like Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse.”

  “Twenty-seven? Wow. That’s younger than us.” Lisa shook her head. “Did they all really die at twenty-seven?”

  “Yeah! So let’s do it. Let’s watch the full moon rise together while we still can. Because once this baby gets here, I don’t know when I’ll be able to do that kind of thing again.”

  “You’re not going to go live in a cave or something. You’re still going to be here.”

  “Here in Moss Creek, yes. But everything will get so much busier.” Carly looked pensive. “And what if having a baby changes me?”

  Lisa didn’t like to admit that she’d worried about the same thing. “Everything changes us. Without change, we’d be rocks or statues. Even rocks change. I mean,” she gestured in a vaguely northward direction, “look at the Grand Canyon. Nothing stays the same. Not even rocks.”

  “Sometimes I wish it could.”

  “Yeah.” Lisa thought of her first years in LA. She’d thought she and Dylan would be together forever. They’d lived the ramen noodles lifestyle and run on hope for the glamorous future where they’d both be movie stars. At the time, she believed that things would only change for the better. But they’d fallen out of love, or at least he’d fallen enough out of love to be able to cheat on her and break her heart.

  “Do you ever wish you could go back?” Lisa said.

  “Hmm,” Carly said, looking off into the distance. “Sometimes, maybe. I mean, I wish I could go back to certain moments. Like I’d love to go back and have blueberry pie and lemonade with Grandma. Or play with Peaches again when she was a puppy. Do you?”

  “Peaches was a good dog,” Lisa said, thinking of that wagging tail and boundless energy. “There are things I wish I could do over. I mean, not going to jail would have been nice.”

  Carly nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. But every experience shapes us. I guess that’s why I’d just want to do a rerun of greatest hits.”

  “Well that’s what you get for making so many good decisions. How’s Gideon?”

  Carly’s smile grew. “He’s the cutest thing in the world. You never saw someone so ready to be a daddy. He’s been making hand-carved wooden blocks for the baby. Every evening he’s out in the garage cutting and carving and sanding. He showed me a block last night, and it had a finish like satin, just from rubbing it with finer and finer grains of sandpaper.”

  “Aw, that’s adorable.”

  The bell at the front door jingled, and Lisa remembered with a start that she was at work. “Hey, I’ve got to keep this place running, but we’re on for tonight.”

  Chapter 3

  The big round moon peeked through the snow-covered ponderosa pines surrounding the Folly. Lisa hugged her coat around herself on the third-floor balcony and snugged the quilt a little tighter around her legs. Sitting next to her, Carly grinned as the shining disk bathed them in its cold light. Her belly, covered in a thin white layer of maternity sweater, was like another moon.

  “Aren’t you cold?” Lisa said, rubbing her fingers up and down her arms and wincing at the cold wind.

  “My internal thermostat is all the way up,” Carly said. “I’d sleep with all the windows open if Gideon would let me. Seriously, this baby is like a little furnace.”

  “Weird. Well, looks like the moon has officially risen. Want to go in now?”

  Carly laughed. “Sure. Let’s thaw you out. Are you making popcorn?”

  Lisa was already up and opening the balcony doors. “Naturally. You can’t have a movie night without popcorn, can you? Rhetorical question.”

  Lisa watched the movie smothered in blankets on the couch. The early nineties goth look still pinged her radar as what the cool edgy older kids were into.

  “Can you believe this came out when we were six?” she said as the final credits appeared.

  “Can you believe we got to watch it?” Carly said.

  “Kind of. I mean, we were over at Toby’s house, and Aunt Olivia never really monitored what we watched.”

  Carly laughed. “Re
member that time we rented all those horror movies and then none of us could sleep?”

  “What’ll you do if your kid wants to watch scary movies?”

  Carly patted her belly. “Probably say no. But with how technology is going, it’s going to be harder than it was when we were kids.”

  “True. Oh, Annette showed me something new the other day. Some social media app called Krumbsi. Have you heard of it?”

  “Yeah.” Carly nodded. “The kids aren’t supposed to have phones at school, but for some of them it’s like saying they have to leave an arm at home. I’ve seen the app. Something about cookies, right?”

  “Yeah, cookies and nibbles and crumbs and icing. The whole time she was talking about it, I was getting hungry. But apparently it’s been picked up by celebrities. That’s how I heard about the movie production coming to town. Perdition’s Cowboy, starring Kaden Nicolini.”

  “Oh, the kids love him. Last week I had to break up a whole choreographed fight sequence on the playground. They were doing a scene from one of his martial arts action movies. They were so cute I almost didn’t want to stop them, but… liability.”

  The movie credits finished, and Carly leaned forward. “Here it is, the interview with Brandon Lee. Can you turn it up a little?”

  Lisa turned up the volume and they watched Brandon Lee’s last interview. He talked about the film, and filmmaking, and his famous dad, Bruce Lee. Carly sighed wistfully as he asked how many more times in your life will you watch the full moon rise. Lisa shook her head but said nothing. Carly was enjoying the interview. She picked up her phone and looked up Brandon Lee.

  “Hey, it says here that Brandon Lee was actually twenty-eight when he died,” she said after the interview finished. “So much for the twenty-seven curse.”

  “Close enough for me.” Carly shrugged. “Ok, I should go. Help me out of this chair.”

  *

  Lisa was brewing the first pots of coffee for the day and arranging the displays of muffins and pastry when the bell on the front door jingled. She wiped her hands on her apron and put on a smile as she went to greet her first customer.

  She was surprised to see it was her mother.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said, giving her a quick hug.

  “I just got a call,” Penny said. “What are you doing at lunchtime?”

  “Serving lunch.”

  “Well, you’ll need to get someone in to cover the shift. I’m taking you to Nero’s to meet Gavin Jump.”

  “Gavin Jump? Mom, I can’t drop everything to go to Nero’s in the middle of the day like that, not even to meet some Hollywood director.”

  “So you know who he is. That’s good. And he’s not just the director. He’s the writer and producer as well. A hyphenate, they call that.”

  “I know what a hyphenate is.”

  “And he’s going to be here today. The fact that he’s got time to meet with us at all was not a given, you know. He’s a very busy man.”

  “Why would he want to meet with us?” Lisa said.

  “He’s filming in Moss Creek, and he needs someone local who can help find locations for the filming.”

  “That sounds good. I’m sure you know plenty of good places.”

  “Not me, Lisa. You.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “You know Moss Creek as well as anyone, and you also know the movie business.” Penny looked her daughter in the eye. “Are you saying you couldn’t use the extra income stream?”

  Inside, Lisa had to admit she did need the extra income stream. She needed it a lot. She nodded. “Ok, I’ll do it. And I have an idea. What about craft service? I could supply the production with goodies from the café.”

  “Good. Now you’re thinking like an entrepreneur. I’ll expect you at Nero’s at 12:30.” Penny lifted an eyebrow as she looked at Lisa’s jeans and apron. “And wear something appropriate.”

  “Fine,” Lisa said, suppressing irritation at her mother’s assumption that she would show up to Nero’s, the fanciest restaurant in town, wearing her work apron. “Do you want some coffee before you go?” she said sweetly.

  “Yes, of course. A cappuccino would be lovely. I have a showing this morning so I’ll need to make it fast.”

  *

  At 12:15 Lisa raced upstairs to change clothes for lunch. She stared at her closet for a moment in despair of finding anything suitable to impress a big-deal client, then grabbed some dark leggings and a bulky sweater. She pulled on some warm boots and hustled out the door to jog across the town square to Nero’s.

  “Bella, bellissima!” Nero said, greeting Lisa at the door. They exchanged cheek kisses.

  Lisa inhaled deeply. “Something smells amazing, Nero. Whatever it is, I want some.”

  “Ah, always a smart one, you are,” Nero said. “Come, have a seat. The lovely Penny is already here.”

  They approached a table near the window, and Lisa saw her mother sitting across from a man wearing a flannel shirt with a frayed collar. His back was to them, and she could see that his hair was thinning on top. He had his phone out and was staring at it in deep concentration. At the sound of their footsteps, he set the phone on the table and stood. He was thin but broad-shouldered, as though his body had spent adolescence fighting over what shape to take and finally settled on a compromise midway.

  She reached out her hand. “Lisa Chance. I believe you needed someone to scout some locations, and also for craft service.”

  “Gavin Jump. Nice to meet you.” He held her hand in both of his for a long moment, his gaze warm and intense. “Thank you for joining us for lunch on such short notice.”

  He pulled out her chair and they sat.

  “Oh, well, I’m glad I could make it.” Her face crinkled into a smile.

  “Miss Baldwin-Chance has been telling me about your time in Los Angeles,” Gavin said.

  “Please, call me Penny.”

  “Penny,” he repeated. “And you must call me Gavin.”

  Lisa glanced at the screen of Gavin’s phone on the table and saw the distinctive border shaped like a cookie.

  “Krumbsi?” she said.

  “Oh, you know it?” he said.

  “Sure,” she said casually.

  “We’ve been doing some promotion using their cookie krumbs, you know, on-set insider behind the scenes stuff to get the fans excited.”

  “It seems to be working. My employee Annette has been nibbling on krumbs about Kaden Nicolini so much I had to remind her to put her phone away and go back to work.”

  “Mmm, yes, Kaden Nicolini, our star,” Gavin said. The corners of his mouth moved up in the direction of a smile but the expression didn’t reach his eyes.

  The server came to the table and they got down to the business of ordering and eating. Lisa had the lasagna, which was the source of the delicious smell she’d noticed on her way in. It was hearty and satisfying, perfect for a winter day.

  “So,” Lisa said, finishing up a last bite. “What kind of locations do you need to find in Moss Creek?”

  “We’re shooting the big finale,” Gavin said through a mouthful of fettuccine. “It’s a dark, gritty, western action fantasy shootout. Our hero finally corners the villain, and they both go down in a blaze of glory, so just bullets and blood in the snow and natural beauty. He’s sending him back to hell but he knows he’s going there, too, so it has to be something pristine that they just defile with their manly violence. You see what I’m going for?”

  “Pristine natural beauty, you say? We’ve got a lot of that here.” Lisa thought of her walk in the little canyon with Mo. It was pristine, natural, beautiful, untouched. As far as she knew, no one else knew about the place. Nothing had been filmed there. It wasn’t on any destination guides. “Let me check on some permits, and I’ll get you pictures.”

  Penny smiled and leaned forward. “Permits are my department, dear. Don’t worry about that. Just find the perfect look.”

  Gavin nodded, stabbing his fork in Penny’s direction. “That�
��s what I like to hear. Lisa, send me some krumbs as soon as you can. I’ll nibble the ones I want to see in person, and you can crumble the rest.”

  Penny smiled and sipped her wine. “How very modern.”

  Lisa grinned. “Is that how they’re doing things in the industry these days?”

  Gavin shrugged one shoulder. “A few of us are innovating, but still plenty of people remain loyal to the old-school ways of doing things.”

  Lisa nodded. She remembered when the studios were switching from film to digital cameras. She’d spent the better part of a year overhearing a daily discussion and rant-fest among a small group of regulars at the Coffee Spot about the change.

  Gavin stuffed one last bite in his mouth, swiped at his face with his napkin, and stood up. “I’m so sorry to eat and run, but I have a conference call.”

  Lisa stood as well.

  “What about the craft service?” Lisa said before he could leave.

  “Let’s see… I’ve got a PA handling it, but if you want to take over in town…”

  “That’s perfect. I don’t need to take over. I’ll just do daily deliveries,” Lisa said.

  Gavin nodded. “Great.” He looked at the time on his phone. “I really do have to go. Send me your standard contract and we’ll get it going. Lovely to meet you both. Bye!”

  Lisa nodded at his retreating back. Penny raised her wine glass an inch in his direction before taking another sip.

  “Well,” Lisa said, “he is something.”

  “I think you made quite an impression.”

  Lisa sat down and fiddled with her spoon. “I guess. But Mom, I don’t have a standard contract.”

  Penny smiled. “We’ll write one up. I’ll call my attorney.”

  “Your attorney? Is that really necessary? I mean, you heard what Gavin said.”

  “What a client says isn’t what matters. It’s what’s in the contract that matters,” Penny said.

  “That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think?”

  “That’s business, dear. A pretty promise is worth the paper it’s printed on.” Penny signaled for the check.

  Lisa nodded. Her mind drifted back to the wild beauty of the little canyon. It would make an excellent shooting location. But Mo had taken her there as a special place for just the two of them. Would he be upset if she shared their canyon with the world?