Page 23 of Blood Stone

“Everyone?”

“Enough of them to make it not worth while bringing the rest in to work. I told them to take a holiday, the five or so I had left.”

“Garrett has a long arm,” Roman observed.

“It was Garrett Industries that won the government contracts for the barrier renewal project in Texas and California. Worth billions. I heard Garrett was millions cheaper than the nearest bid, and he’s bringing the contract in on time and under budget. The federal government would do anything to ensure he’s kept happy. If he picked up the phone and called his pals at Immigration and said ‘Pay Kate Lindenstream a call for me,’ they’d spill coffee on their crotches in their scramble to get it done.”

Roman nodded. Kate wasn’t stupid. Likely, Garrett had done something pretty much exactly like that. Although the phone call would have been a bit more subtle than she thought.

“And the third thing?” he asked.

Kate looked at him. Her eyes got bigger. And damn it if her chin didn’t move in the merest hint of a quiver.

Roman’s gut clenched. Fuck, what had Garrett done to her?

Kate pushed a stapled bunch of legal-sized sheets across the desk, turning them with her hand so by the time they were in front of him they were the right way up for him to read.

Roman skipped all the legal phrasing and got to the meat of it, flipping the top page to read the relevant details. “Theft of intellectual property?” He put the paper down. “Well, he’s not fooling around.” He looked up at Kate.

Her scowl hadn’t moved.

“Does this halt the picture?”

“Pretty much,” she said. Her tone was even. Neutral. “Everything is built on the shooting script, and the shooting script is built on the reading script, so...”

Roman touched the legal papers again. “I’m assuming this is a nuisance suit. You wrote the script. You did the research. I remember the publicity about the time you spent in Turkey doing it. You’ve always written your own scripts. This...” He looked down at the paper. “This Roy Cummings that claims you stole his script and re-wrote it, I presume is a lot of bullshit designed to stop production until you give Garrett whatever it is he really wants.”

“It’s as obvious to you, too?” Her knuckles were white around the coffee cup.

“Not obvious, no. But I had a couple of major clues. I passed MacDonald on the way here. And I saw that thing between you and Garrett go down in the basement at The Standard last week.” He tapped the legal suit. “And you said this was number three, so MacDonald must have dropped this off just now. He would have delivered in person just to make sure you knew Garrett was behind this. Along with insults number one and two, it does start to stand out in neon.”

Kate flexed her fingers, then wrapped them about the cup once more. “I want his balls, Adrian. I want him on a butcher’s block and a cleaver in my hand.”

“There’s better ways to get even,” Roman pointed out mildly. “I’m sure you’ve thought of some of them already.”

“Yeah, over the last few days I dreamed up some doozies. But he’s fucking with my movie now.” She stood up abruptly. “He’s interfered with my project.”

There was a look on her face, a line to her jaw that spoke of a deep-held fury and capacity for explosive action. Roman felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck prickle with painful alertness. The predator in him stirred. His incisors shifted.

He held his reaction at bay with sheer willpower, and was suddenly glad he was not Garrett right now.

“Kate,” he said, speaking with the soft tone one used with high-fettled animals, to keep them soothed and calm.

She focused on him.

“What, exactly, does Garrett want so badly to go to all this trouble?”

“What trouble? He’s surrounded by lackeys. He would have said ‘make her life miserable’ and it was done.”

“You don’t know that. From what I hear, he’s a hands-on CEO.” Roman cleared his throat as Kate sent him a withering look. “Anyway, what does he want?”

“He wants in on my movie.”

“He wants a role?” Roman asked, frankly stunned.

Kate shook her head. “He says he can get me Patrick Sauvage for five million,andhe’ll cover Sauvage’s daycare fees. But, he wants to be on the set for filming, in exchange.”

“And you saidno?” Roman was flummoxed. “Why on earth would you turn down a deal like that? Sauvage is asking forty million a movie now.”