He rapped against the plywood door, knuckles impacting the strip of duct tape at about the middle of the Catherine.

No answer.

About to call out, he discovered he had no idea of what her actual name was. If he thought of her at all, she was just Catherine—her actual identity wiped out by the bit part she was playing. Unexpectedly bothered by this, he pulled the day’s side from his pocket and stepped back into the light—nearly stepping on Mason who’d apparently followed him. “Sorry.”

The actor’s lip curled. “Why don’t you just open the door?”

“Well, she could be . . .”

“Could be?” His tone was mocking and Tony realized with some dismay that the young actress was about to pay the price for Mason almost having been caught with a cancer stick on the soundstage. “I don’t care what she could be; she should be on the set right now and I have no intention of waiting any longer.” He curled his fingers around the cheap aluminum doorknob, twisted, twisted harder, and yanked.

With a rush of cool air, shadow spilled out onto the soundstage, pooling on the concrete, running into the cracks and dips in the floor.

A body followed.

She’d been pressed up against the door, her right arm tucked across the small of her back, her fingers clamped around the doorknob. They retained their hold as she fell backward. She dangled for a moment, then cheap nails pulled out of the chipboard and with a shriek of metal against wood, the door came off its hinges.

A small bounce as the back of her head impacted with concrete.

Enough of a bounce to rearrange her features into the nobody’s home expression of death.

Enough to wipe away the expression the body had worn on its way to the floor.

Terror.

She looked as though she’d been scared to death.

Mason scowled down at his errant guest star. “Catherine? Get up!”

“She’s dead.” Tony shoved the sides back in his pocket and unhooked his microphone.

“What? Don’t be ridiculous; she doesn’t die until tomorrow afternoon.”

“And her name was Nikki Waugh.” It was the name he’d almost heard out in the office. He’d realized it the moment he’d read it on the cast list.

“Was?” Mason sounded like he was about to fall apart, like his hindbrain knew what the more civilized bits refused to acknowledge, so Tony let it go. Reality would bite him in the ass soon enough.

At least Nikki’s shadow seemed to be staying where it belonged.

“You seem remarkably calm about this, Mr. Foster.”

RCMP Constable Elson said Mr. Foster the way Hugo Weaving said Mr. Anderson in The Matrix. Maybe it was subconscious, but Tony was willing to bet it was on purpose—a guy in a uniform with delusions of grandeur. He shrugged. “I spent a few years living on the streets in Toronto. I’ve seen dead bodies. Four or five poor fucks freeze every winter.” No point in mentioning the baby soul-sucked by a dead Egyptian wizard.