“And besides, I never take the kind of chances you do. Truth, Cassie, what were you thinking, marking him a second time?”

She smiled and glanced down at the smudge of paint on one finger. “I was thinking that since I’d gotten him to take off his jacket, maybe I could get him to take off his pants. Come on.” Taking his hand, she pulled him toward the door. “I want to see what they’re doing now.”

“Raymond, I think you’d better have a look at this.”

“Cut and print! That was excellent work, gentlemen.” Tossing his headphones onto the shelf under the monitor, Peter turned to his director of photography. “How much time do you need to reset for scene eight?”

Sorge popped a throat lozenge into his mouth and shrugged. “Shooting from down here . . . fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. No more. When we move to the top of the stairs . . .”

“Don’t borrow trouble.” He raised his voice enough to attract the attention of his IAD . . . “Adam, tell them they’ve got twenty minutes to kill.” . . . and lowered it again as he pivoted a hundred and eighty degrees to face his script supervisor. “Tina, let’s you and I go over that next scene. There’ll be a bitch of a continuity problem if we’re not careful, and I don’t need a repeat of episode twelve.”

“At least we know there’s ninety-one people watching the show,” she pointed out as she stood.

Peter snorted. “I still think it was one geek with ninety-one e-mail addresses.”

As they moved off into the dining room and the techs moved in to shove the video village out into the actual entryway where it wouldn’t be in the shot, Adam stepped out into the middle of the foyer and looked up at the two actors. “You’ve got fifteen, guys.”

“I’ll be in my dressing room.” Turning on one heel, Mason headed back up the stairs.

“If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my dressing room as well.” Lee grimaced, reached back, and yanked at his pants. “These may dry faster off my ass.”

Mouse, his gray hair more a rat-tail down his back and physically the complete opposite of his namesake— no one had ever referred to him as meek and lived to speak of it—stepped out from behind his camera and whistled. “You want to drop trou, don’t let us stop you.”

Someone giggled.

Tony missed Lee’s response as he realized the highly unlikely sound could only have come from Kate, Mouse’s camera assistant. He wouldn’t have bet money on Kate knowing how to giggle. He wasn’t entirely certain she knew how to laugh.