He never carried a gun when he was traveling on Centurion Studios business, and that had rarely been a problem. Now he was looking around the minimal furnishings of the lounge area to see if there was anything he could use as a weapon, but his thought process kept being interrupted by the woman repeatedly coming at him.

Teddy rolled around the floor away from her approaches, quickly processing his surroundings. Before he’d settled on a course of action, he saw security approaching and, for once, he was happy to see armed guards in uniform. He stopped rolling and lay flat on his back, waiting for the guards to take the woman away. But they came for him, too. He saw the Tasers just before he felt them, and then he was finally asleep.

—

“I wasn’t attacking him, I was trying to wake him,” Teddy heard a woman say in clear English.

He opened his eyes and saw he was in a brightly lit small office that looked like a bathroom with all the fixtures removed. An enormous man in a pristine white security uniform with thick black hair and a thin, drooping moustache sat behind a desk with a gold nameplate that read SERGEANT LAM. The woman who had been attacking him was standing in front of Sergeant Lam, waving her arms dramatically.

“Your hand-to-hand combat is as good as mine,” Teddy said, without thinking.

“You’re a movie producer and I’m a secretary,” the woman said, spinning toward Teddy, giving him a meaningful look. “I wouldn’t say either of us should be good at hand-to-hand combat.”

This woman clearly knew more about Teddy than he was comfortable with.

Sergeant Lam sighed and gripped the sides of his desk tightly. Teddy watched the man’s knuckles drain of color. When Sergeant Lam finally spoke, his words were precise.

“Fighting in the lounges is forbidden,” Lam said.

Teddy cringed at the word forbidden. It sounded so dramatic and ridiculous. He just wanted to get back to L.A. and to the two lives he led that nowadays rarely involved hand-to-hand combat that wasn’t staged.

“I’m sorry, sir. I haven’t been sleeping well and my emotions got the better of me,” Teddy said.

Sergeant Lam groaned but didn’t say anything.

“I’m a movie producer,” Teddy continued, “and I’ve been working on an action movie that has a lot of—”

“I don’t care. Leave now. No more fighting.”

Teddy didn’t need to be told to leave twice and was out of the office and almost back to the lounge before he heard the woman yelling his name.

“Leave me alone,” Teddy said.

“Peter Barrington sent me. He needs your help.”

2