“I’m not doing it to you, Li’l Sis. I’m doing it for me.”

Once he’d delivered that line, Dean raised the gun to his temple and squeezed the trigger. The instant the hammer flew forward, there was a loud explosion. The earsplitting blast prompted several screams from the extras, and Hannah stood there staring, barely able to believe what she was seeing. Dean Lawrence, Hollywood’s Bad Boy Director, was lying facedown in the tray of Mini Cherry Cheesecakes, his legs slumped against the front of the desk and his arms dangling limply at his sides. There was no doubt in Hannah’s mind that he’d suffered the same fate as the character he’d been playing. The fake suicide of the movie had turned out to be all too real. The empty revolver without its firing pin had fired!

Chapter

Chapter

Twenty

Even if she were so inclined, there was no way Hannah could get close to the mayhem on the set. People were yelling, screaming, pushing, and shoving to get away from the violent scene. Hannah stood where she was, not wanting to move until some sort of order was restored, and stared at the panicking actors and extras.

Was that a blue uniform in the middle of the melee? Hannah tried to see past an opaque lavender silk object that turned out to be Helen Barthel’s derrierre. Yes, it was Mike, towering head and shoulders above the diminutive Amber Coombs in her smart little cocktail waitress uniform. As Hannah watched, Mike made his way through the crowd and arrived at Lynne’s side. He spoke to her for a moment and Hannah saw him pick up the chair with Lynne still in it, and place it so that she was sitting a few feet away from the desk. A moment later, Mike had commandeered a Japanese silk screen and he moved it in place to block Dean’s body from everyone’s view.

Hannah was so shocked by what she’d just witnessed, her mind took a strange twist. She’d been planning to add Jane’s Mini Cherry Cheesecakes to her menu at The Cookie Jar, but now that was definitely out. Anyone who had seen the dreadful incident would never be able to look at the cheesecakes without remembering Dean’s last effort to play someone else’s part and his second-to-final resting place. It was really a shame, because the cheesecakes were very good and they would have looked lovely on a silver tray with a white paper doily and

She was jerked back to the present by a piercing whistle. There was a second whistle, and then a third. And then she heard Mike’s voice.

“Stop! Stop right where you are!” he yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth in a makeshift megaphone. “Nobody move a muscle!”