Free Aurora 07 - Last Scene Alive by Charlaine Harris Page A

more like my friend Robin than a stranger who’d been living in a strange land. Robin looped one long arm around my shoulders and stooped to give me a kiss on the cheek.
    “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
    “No, I have to work.”
    “You don’t want to come back to the set?” He sounded less surprised than he might have a couple of days ago. Robin was reorienting himself to my life.
    “No.”
    Robin looked down at me, his face inscrutable. “Then I’ll see you soon,” he said finally. I watched as he loped down the steps to cross the yard to the cab waiting on the driveway. There was a car passing by, out on the road, a little unusual for this time of night. Maybe my neighbor Clement had been out late.
    What a strange evening it had been. I fed Madeleine and trudged up the stairs, yawning hard enough to make a cracking sound. As I got ready for bed, going through my usual skin and stretching routine, I wondered if I should have foregone my evening out with the movie people.
    Then I thought, That’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Even if I didn’t enjoy it at all, it’s a good thing to have done . I was glad it was over, though, and as I composed myself to sleep I thought of Celia Shaw’s clever, sulky, beautiful face. I wondered if she’d ever win an Oscar; I could say I’d known her when.
    That would be more fun than knowing her now.

Chapter Five
    Making a liar out of me, the next morning saw me on my way back to the movie set, which today, I’d discovered, was the Sparling County Courthouse. I was still blinking and trying to feel completely alert. Beside me in the front seat was my friend Angel Youngblood: mother, stunt-woman, and former bodyguard. Pregnancy and motherhood had not had any visible effect on Angel’s long, sleek body.
    When the phone had rung at the crack of dawn, Angel’s was the last voice I’d expected to hear. “Hey, Roe,” she’d said, her flat Florida drawl instantly recognizable. “Listen, I need some help.”
    “What?” I knew I sounded groggy, and I tried to focus on the clock. It was six, time for me to get up and get ready for work.
    “Sorry I woke you up.”
    “No, no, I have to get ready for work anyway. What can I do for you?” Angel never called without a reason; she wasn’t a chatterer.
    “Shelby’s already at work with his car, mine won’t start, and I need to leave the baby-sitter hers because Joan’s got a doctor’s appointment today. Can you give me a lift to the movie set?”
    I ran a hand over my face, and recalled that Angel had told me she’d gotten work on the set.
    “Sure,” I said. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes or less.”
    “Thanks.” Angel hung up.
    I washed my face and brushed my teeth, pulled on a long, pale orange tee-shirt style dress and a light sweater, slid into some clogs, powdered my face, and clattered down the stairs and out the front door before I had really attained consciousness. I was a little more alert by the time I beeped the horn outside Angel and Shelby’s ranch-style home.
    Angel slid out of the front door like a thief in the night, her Capri-length black stretch pants and her white blouse emphasizing her golden colors and smooth body movements. Her thick blond hair was caught back in a ponytail, and she wore no makeup, which was Angel’s norm.
    “How’s Joan?” I asked as Angel climbed into the car.
    Angel grinned, and went from looking serious and possibly dangerous to looking like a mother who was proud as hell of the most wonderful baby in the world. “She’s into banging on pots and pans,” Angel told me, and we talked about Joan’s progress for a minute or two. “My neighbor is keeping her today. She has a little boy a couple of months older. Courthouse,” she reminded me, and as I pulled away from the curb to go to Lawrenceton’s fake-antebellum edifice, she began to tell me about a civil confrontation Shelby had had with Martin’s replacement at the Pan-Am Agra plant.
    I was listening