“We’re not ditching the ep?”

“Can’t afford to.” Tone and cadence added the show must go on as clearly as if she’d spoken the cliché out loud. “Besides, Catherine’s only in two more scenes and she dies horribly in one of them.”

Tony pulled out his sides and flipped through to the script. “Today’s pages were all about her exposition in the office. That’s going to need a good match.”

“So she’ll be distraught. With enough runny mascara no one’ll ever notice as long as the hair and clothes match.”

“The original Catherine’s still in the clothes.”

“Oh, yeah.” Amy looked intrigued by the macabre thought. “Bet you CB has them back by tomorrow.”

Skin crawling, Tony shook his head. “No bet. But will the new Catherine be willing to wear them?”

“Hello? We went to Liz.”

Liz Terr’s agency wasn’t called Starving Actors R Us, but it should have been.

“Good po . . . What are you looking at?”

“You’ve got an audience.”

Tony turned in time to see one of the writers jerk back behind the shelter of their workroom door.

“He was staring at you like you’re suddenly a resource.”

“For what?”

“Dead bodies. Police interaction. How should I know?”

“Those guys need to get a life.”

“If they had a life, would they be working here, fleshing out the boss’ holy writ? Giving form and function to the dark thoughts of Chester Bane?”

Glancing over at the open door to CB’s office, Tony wondered at the risk Amy had just taken. Rumor had it that CB didn’t care what was said about his size, his temper, or his fish, but the very short leash he allowed the writing staff was never to be acknowledged. Impossible to blame disaster on the writers if it was. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. CB Productions, please hold.” She rested the phone against her cheek and sighed. “It’s just . . . one minute she was alive and then she wasn’t; you know?”

“Yeah.” Although Tony had a terrible feeling it hadn’t happened that quickly. “You’d better get back to work before this whole place falls apart.”

“You, too.”

He turned his radio back on as he crossed the office, but all he could hear was the kind of quiet chatter that said nothing had started happening yet. Hand outstretched to open the door that led to the halls of costumes and ultimately the soundstage, he paused, his attention caught by his shadow. The banks of flickering fluorescent lights lit him up in such a way that it looked as though he was going one way and his shadow was going another, gray and barely visible fingers stretching out across scuffed paint to turn the handle of the basement door.

The basement.

Where the FX workrooms were.

Where Arra Pelindrake was. She’d been on location last night and he’d seen her today just before he found Nikki’s body. He’d been looking right at her when that voice had murmured Nikki’s name in his ear jack.