Page 109 of Good Enough
“Shut the fuck up!” he snarled at her, recentering the gun’s aim at her face. “I figured, fine, I couldn’t get to you. Plan B is always the assistant. They always want to curry favors so that they can make their way up the ladder. Ambition is a heartless bitch. But even there, you screwed everything up. Not only were you immune, but you refused to hire a personal assistant. Nothing like a director with a God complex.”
“I don’t have a God complex,” Kai rasped. She could feel stomach bile trying to creep up her throat.
This is not good. What an understatement.
“Oh, yes, you do. You need to retain all control over all aspects of your project. It was annoying as hell, especially since you were meticulous with your files and records, making my life much harder when it came to hiding what I was doing. You made everything so fucking difficult. Why couldn’t you be just as clueless as any other director? Too overwhelmed to pay attention to what was happening around you that wasn’t actual filming.” He sneered at her. “Then you went and brought in Captain America, and everything became ten times harder because he was just like you. Always watching. Always noticing things.”
“I knew it. You were stealing from the production. You bastard. For what? To make it look like I did it? What the hell is it about me that you hate so much you’d rather have a production fail than make you a shit-ton of money?” The ache in her head grew worse, and the room began to swim.
He sneered at her. “It has nothing to do with you, bitch. Although it was about money. A lot of money. Down in those third-world nations, a crate of weapons, even fake ones, goes for more cash than you could possibly imagine. The average person wouldn’t know a fake gun from a real one. Imagine how easy it is to intimidate people with weapons in hand. It was perfect. Everything had been going so well until the board insisted on hiring you. I knew I wouldn’t be able to control you. Your reputation of being locked down and focused is almost legendary. So I was forced to resort to grander tricks to try and distract you so I could finish out my retrieval of supplies for my buyers.”
“You arranged the break-ins to try and scare me. The food poisoning and the injured stuntman to derail filming.” Her ears were still ringing, and she felt like she was going to vomit everywhere, but Kai fought to stay conscious, always looking for an opportunity to exploit so that she could try and flee.
“I needed to find a way to scare you. When that didn’t work, I had to cast doubt on you. I couldn’t run the risk of you completing the final audit on the film with the board. So much for that. But, if an accident were to happen and shut down filming temporarily, the distraction would give me time to doctor the books. Those idiots don’t even know how to read their own spreadsheets. But no, you figure out a way to keep filming.
“So, how to get rid of you? I figure home invasions are so tragic, don’t you think? Nice and dramatic for our beloved director. And it will be so moving when I give the official statement about the terrible loss to the Hollywood community, especially since you’ve directed what will surely be the biggest box office smash of the summer. Even if the film were awful, your death would cause people to flock to the theaters to see your last work. Luckily, the filming is brilliant, so it’s going to make way more money than even I imagined.”
“I thought you said it was worthless,” she snapped.
“I would never have admitted to you, even if only Felicity overheard, that what you put together was any good. But now? You won’t be there to counter any story I put forth. Don’t worry, though. I’ll make sure there’s an opening dedication in your memory. I sure as hell won’t lose any sleep over saying all kinds of wonderful things, remembering you fondly, even hinting at how attracted I was to you, and the loss I now feel that I never had a chance to tell you how I felt about you. Because inside, it will give me indescribable joy that I’m going to be the one to put you down.”
Make him mad. Maybe he’ll make a mistake. You’re going to have to move fast if he gives you an opening.
“There’s only one problem, Craig. Kowalski. He knows what you said to me today. I called him as soon as I got to my trailer. He’s probably already rounded up the board members by now. Even if you manage to pull off your little home invasion scenario, they’ll look at you first, considering the meeting we had earlier.”
And then the opening came, as she had hoped. Her confession that she’d actually told someone what had happened forced his hand. He took a step closer to her, straddling her calves and bringing the gun within point-blank range of her head.
“Say goodbye, bitch.”
Before he had the wherewithal to pull the trigger, Kai raised her leg up with lightning speed, hitting him full force in his balls, then swiped his feet out from underneath him with the same leg. He went down like a stone, the gun flying out of his hands and coming to rest under the couch.
Kai scrambled to the side, trying to avoid his falling figure and reach the gun, but she wasn’t quite fast enough. Despite the incredible pain he must have been in, he reached for her, managing to wrap both hands around her throat, choking her. She had a split-second choice. Try to get his hands from around her neck or try to reach the gun. Knowing that he might actually strangle her in his rage, Kai chose to go for the gun. Blindly reaching with her fingertips, she struggled to keep conscious. If she gave up for even a second, it would all be over.
All of a sudden, Kai felt something cold and hard under her fingertips. Unfortunately, Stapleton realized she had managed to get herself within range of picking up the weapon. Without letting go of her throat with one hand, his other reached out and wrapped around the wrist of the hand, grasping at the weapon. He slammed her wrist down on the floor hard to try and get her to drop the gun. Between the pain in her head, in her hand, the nausea, and the oxygen deprivation sweeping over her, there was a bang as everything started to go black. Over her, Stapleton stilled in surprise, then fell on top of her. His unmoving weight was crushing her, but his fingers had relaxed from around her throat and wrist, and her fear of being asphyxiated by his body made her push with every ounce of strength she could muster until she rolled him over and off of her.
Like a crab, Kai scrambled sideways to clear Stapleton’s body. It was clear he was dead. If the pool of blood forming quickly underneath him wasn’t enough proof, the wide-eyed, lifeless stare in his eyes was. She whimpered, clutching the weapon tightly in both hands.
Oh my fucking God, what have I done?
Had she been thinking clearly, she would have rationalized that it was him or her. That he had tried to stage a home invasion to cover his tracks. That he had meant to kill her. But at the moment, she was far from rational. What the hell was she going to do now?
She gulped down the last of her water, squeezing the bottle so tight it collapsed.
Waters pried the bottle from her hands. “Why did you end up in an Uber, Kubrick?”
“Honestly, I’ve no idea. Probably because of the gun. I knew I needed to get rid of it, so I fled out the back door and straight to the pond. I threw it in, and the next thing I knew, I was out on the back road. I called Demon on the number he gave me, and then I caught an Uber when I got down to the main drag. Then you took me back to the house, the rest of you showed up, and that’s it.”
There was silence.
“Ka-Bar is temporarily on the back burner. We have a fuck of a disaster to clean up, gentlemen. Let’s get to it.
“Midas, double-check all communications between Kubrick and Tribe to make sure they have been destroyed. Next, find that Uber driver and erase all traces of her digitally. We can’t do anything about her being there physically, but it's hard to go beyond he-said-she-said when there’s no record of a fare. Then get scrubbing cameras everywhere from the bar, to the studio, to her house, especially any security cameras in the neighborhood that show footage relating to us. Do the same for Stapleton to her home. Erase that shit so it looks like nothing has happened other than Kubrick’s normal traffic. Make sure to pull all cameras from her home.
“TB, make that shitfuck disappear.”
“Demon. Get to the pond. Find that gun and destroy it.
“Nemo and Steel, start on housecleaning.